On Saturday, November 22 we kicked off the holiday season with our second annual Sparkling Soirée. This is a classy and well-loved event where we release our newest vintage of sparkling wine. Complimenting the release, guests enjoyed tasty bites provided by Alchemy Northwest, music by local harpist, Leigh Brown, immersive holiday décor, and a ceremonial sabering of the newest vintage by owner, Jon Owens.
We have had a sparkling wine in production since our first harvest season in 2021, but due to the length of time necessary to create this labor of love, we only released our first sparkling wine, 2021 Sparkling Brut, last November. After our first release was loved by customers and critics alike, receiving an outstanding score of 94 points and being double-blind selected as a best in its category by Oregon Wine Press this year, we knew the 2022 vintage had a lot to live up to.
With a late pivot early this fall, we took 10 cases out of the 150 we had fermented to make a highly limited, club-exclusive sparkling wine. This meant that at the Soirée we were able to release two 2022 sparkling wines: a Sparkling Brut and a Limited Edition Sparkling Brut. To honor the special production of the Limited Edition, the label is all black, the inverse of the main label, and each of the bottles are hand-numbered out of the total 120. Notably, both wines are classified as “brut” wines, this refers to the (small) amount of sugar added back into the wine at the end of production. Despite the same classification, these wines are vastly different in flavor and texture. To properly describe what makes them unique, it’s important to understand the lengthy process of making a sparkling wine in the traditional champagne method.
For both our sparkling vintages thus far, we have followed the traditional champagne recipe using our own estate-grown Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Meunier. The grapes that go into our sparkling are the first to be harvested each year, they get immediately pressed, and then the wine is put in bottles (as opposed to barrels) where it ferments for about three years. During the long fermentation process, the yeast put into the batch consumes all the natural sugar, and that process over time is what creates the bubbles. When it’s time to bottle the wine for consumption, the bottles all must be dosage treated. Dosage is the process of adding wine and sugar back into the bottles, and is where sparkling wine gets a large amount of its flavor and texture. Wine needs to be added back into the bottles both as a means to add the sugar, and because the bottles the wine has fermented in are popped to release a buildup of yeast, losing with it a small amount of wine.
Because the wines were the same up until early November, we knew we would have to treat them each with a unique enough dosage that it would be clearly noticeable. In order to reach the distinction between the two, we tasted multiple wine vessels and many different sugar levels to create the perfect and entirely different dosages. For the Sparkling Brut we were open to having a completely different dosage than the previous vintage, but we ultimately and blindly landed on the exact same one – a vessel of Estate Chardonnay and 7 g/L of sugar. There was concern it might be tricky to successfully create a dosage different enough to not only offer two completely unique wines, but also offer a second that we really liked and felt special. We found that even the smallest change of dosage vessel made an incredible impact. Simply using the Owens Reserve Chardonnay drastically smoothed the texture of the Limited Edition, and we knew right away that was the vessel we would use. Then we played around with various sugar levels, and with the different mouth feel of this vessel, we were able to significantly enhance the flavor by selecting a higher sugar level of 12 g/L.
At the Soirée we only poured the 2022 Sparkling Brut because that was the wine available for purchase to all, but we surprised the overjoyed crowd of bubble-lovers by sharing a small taste of the 2022 Limited Edition as well. Both wines were incredibly well-received, and some guests joined the club to access the Limited Edition