notes
Mondays
harvest 2021
oct 2021
After a few of the most challenging vintage years we've seen in Washington, 2021 was a great vintage year for us, even with the record breaking heat.
The 2021 vintage has been particularly intense- with all our grapes picked and processed by the end of September, almost an entire month earlier than last year. Despite high, prolonged heat beginning early in the summer (the temp was hanging out at and above 100 degrees for almost a month), we had a great harvest with all the recent changes at the winery finally coming to fruition. Though wildfires and smoke were still important factors over the course of the growing season, smoke levels were minimal compared to last year. We are excited to be able to use a little more skin contact on a few of our pét-nats this vintage without fear of smoke impact.
Our entire 2021 vintage came from certified organic vineyards. We sourced from a few new vineyards: Red Boar, just outside of Walla Walla, and Foundry Vineyard’s very own estate vineyard, Stonemarker.
Now that the vineyard has been certified, we are able to source from our estate for a Pét Project wine. At Stonemarker we try to go above and beyond certified organic standards and this year we were actually aided by the dry season. Arid conditions created very little mildew pressure and because of this, we only sprayed 5 times this season which is about half as much as is usually needed. We also opted not to use sulfur and instead made organic neem oil our primary spray, supplemented by some homemade compost tea,infused with fermented horsetail and fermented nettle teas (herbs that grow wild at the creek and wetland area just at the base of the vineyard). Stay tuned to learn more about our vineyard management and future plans for Stonemarker.
As we have in the past few years, we are also adding new wines to our 2021 portfolio but we kept a few familiar favorites around. The Chenin Blanc from Arete Vineyard, Conley Syrah, and Pinot Gris from Pear Ridge (formerly Acadia Vineyard)- all crowd favorites from last year- will make reappearances. New to the lineup will be a Muscat Ottonel from Red Boar Vineyard. For this single varietal, we will do various degrees of skin contact on this grape to feel out it’s potential. It’s an exciting and lively grape that will make an amazing addition to the array of colors, textures and flavors that we offer. We are also ramping up production on piquettes, the ever popular wine-like beverages which means we will be “re-cycling” more of our byproducts from the winemaking process.
vines
Mondays
red bubbles
jan 2021
If you haven’t seen red bubbles before (don't worry, you're not alone), this was a logical next step for pétproject.
2020 was my fourth vintage creating pet-nats, so I was excited to try a few new things, one being, sparkling red wine. I was inspired by the many Lambruscos I’ve enjoyed over the years and wanted to make something in that spirit. Lambrusco is often made in the same style as prosecco, using the charmat method, which takes a finished wine through a second fermentation in-tank.
For our new sparkling Syrah, we harvested the grapes early and used whole cluster carbonic maceration for 10 days prior to pressing. With minimal tannin from skin contact, you get that super juicy, fruit profile.
After pressing, the fermenting wine continued its fermentation in stainless steel. Rather than bottling this wine near the end of fermentation and disgorging after a few months, we placed the wine in a pressure tank to finish its primary fermentation. This allowed the wine to self-carbonate. After a settling period we bottled the wine unfined and unfiltered from this same tank using a counter pressure bottler with no additives or SO2 during any stage of the winemaking process. The result is a light, nuanced, fruit-forward sparkling red.
Varietal: Syrah
Vintage: 2020
Vineyard: Conley Vineyard
AVA: Columbia Valley
Farming Practices: Certified Organic
Alcohol: 10%
Yeast: Indigenous
Sulfur: 0
Filter: 0
Fining: 0
Aromatics: funk, raspberry coulis
Palate: cranberry, pomegranate, rye
Format: 750mL
Cases Produced: 55
wines
Mondays
harvest 2020
nov 2020
Fires. Drought. Climate change. Vineyards were not exempt from the environmental hardships of 2020. See how we took on the challenges of this year to produce an incredible line up of wines.
The 2020 vintage was a big year of changes at the winery. We made the decision to go full tilt on organic certifications for all of our wines. This lets you know you can trust that everything made under the pét project label came from vetted sources and contains no SO2 (check out the section on organic practices for more info on the certification process in the US). The growing season was relatively predictable, however as harvest approached, severe smoke from fires in California and parts of the Pacific Northwest created a lot of uncertainty. Because of potential smoke taint, we avoided the use of any skin contact on our whites this year, which saved us from serious smoke impact.
We purchased fruit from Arete Vineyard this year, a new (to us) vineyard in the Columbia Valley AVA near the town of Othello, WA. This vineyard has some of the oldest Chenin Blanc and Gewürztraminer in Washington State (38 years old!). Also joining the line-up: Riesling and Syrah. Along with the new wines we tried a few new wine-making techniques (both during fermentation and in the cellar) in an effort to continually push for more complexity and diversity of flavor in our pet-nats.
Both the Syrah and the Gewürztraminer were started using carbonic maceration to naturally boost aromatics and fruit intensity. This process is most famously used in Beaujolais to produce lively, fruit-forward wines. For us the process begins by adding the grapes to a tank with a little pied de cuve and some dry ice to purge the tanks of oxygen (see our notes on native fermentation to learn more about pied de cuve). The tank is closed off with a fermentation lock which allows gas to escape without letting oxygen enter. The absence of oxygen allows the fruit to begin an anaerobic fermentation and over the course of several days the fruit begins fermenting from the inside out. The Gewürztraminer spent one week in these conditions while the Syrah spent about 10 days.
Also new this year, we utilized more pressure tanks in our production. Typically, with our hand-disgorged pet-nats we bottle just before fermentation completes followed by 3-4 months of lees aging, then disgorging. With this new method we add the fermenting wine into a pressure tank at about the same time it would typically go into bottle. The tank is locked down and the wine completes its fermentation, building CO2. After a settling period we bottle the wine under pressure off a higher racking port, leaving the sediment behind. This process does two things: it gives the wine less time on the lees, and it allows us to bypass the disgorging process while maintaining a naturally sparkling wine without filtration or additives.
vines
Mondays
native fermentation
sep 2020
Each pétproject wine is fermented naturally, utilizing wild yeast from the vineyard. Native fermentations are dynamic- always unpredictable and lively. They present a challenge each harvest that I am happy to accept.
Every pét project wine is fermented naturally, utilizing wild indiginous yeast from the vineyard, as opposed to cultured lab yeast. I opt to use a pied de cuve to begin each fermentation- it’s a small, "starter" from the vineyard- which I begin in advance of the bulk fermentation. I often compare this method to baking sourdough bread with a starter. Using this technique helps build up a healthy and diverse natural yeast population, allowing the primary fermentation to take off strong.
I have been asked on occasion if this process yields the same result as leaving the grapes and must to ferment on their own, completely untouched. In fact, it can be almost the exact same result, however, using a pied de cuve is more intentional, it promotes a healthier fermentation and in my opinion adds an element of intention to an otherwise uncontrolled process.
To make the pied de cuve, I pick about 25 lbs of exceptionally healthy looking fruit at the vineyard about a week before harvest. I hand destem this fruit into a large-mouth glass carboy and use what looks like an oversized potato masher (it’s actually a large potato masher) to crush the fruit and make a mash of juice and skins.
The environmental yeasts get to work and after 3-4 days the fermentation really starts bubbling away. I do a series of mini-punch downs to wet the cap and introduce oxygen before lightly pressing and straining off the fermenting liquid to add to the harvested fruit in a whole-cluster format or to recently pressed juice depending on the intended direction of a given wine. The result is stylistically consistent, yet the product is always unique and the quality of the wine depends entirely on the quality of the raw material from the vineyard.
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