Haarmeyer - St. Rey Chenin Blanc En Foudre (750ml)

    

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Producer	Haarmeyer
Country	United States
Region	California
Subregion	Clarksburg
Varietal	Chenin Blanc
Sku	29778
Size	750ml

This 100% Chenin Blanc is aged on lees in large format oval shaped casks, hence the designation ‘en foudre’. The result is a complex, balanced Chenin that rivals some of the best from France or South Africa.

About the winery: Haarmeyer Wine Cellars is a family team, composed by winemaker Craig, his son
Alex, wife Kelly, and daughter Marian. They started the winery in 2008 by sourcing fruit from a
vineyard farmed by Ron Silva in the small town of Galt, California. At the time, he was interested
primarily in making port and other wines using Spanish and Portuguese varieties, mainly
because of the dry climate. But eventually he started to consider other varieties that might do
well here. As his mind wandered, he felt like he was, in a way, trying to define and express the
“Sacramento terroir”. No longer was this the land of tomato production only!

For Haarmeyer, a third-generation Sacramentan, making wine is more about
place, history and naturalness. The less he intervenes between grape and glass, the better. He
explains: “Wine is an agricultural product that wants to do its own thing, and we should let it [...]
We add nothing [to our wines] but elbow grease”. Grapes are sourced from organic and
biodynamic growers and picked early to preserve natural acidity. Grapes are stomped by foot, in
part for tradition and in part because Craig believes this ancient technique adds complexity and
a sense of place to their wines. Fermentation is always with naturally occurring yeasts.
Foudres are used for fermenting some whites, such as the aptly named “Chenin en foudre”.
Barrel maturation takes place mainly in large, neutral puncheons and occasionally in smaller
barriques as well. Besides Syrah, Craig makes wines from Riesling, Zinfandel, and Nebbiolo.
However most of their wines each year focus on single vineyard expressions of Chenin Blanc -
in fact he makes upwards of six single vineyard bottlings in a given year! Craig’s approach with
his red wines, this Syrah among them, is to make lighter, lower alcohol, and less bulky
expressions. This is in great contrast to many other high production California reds that are
easily over extracted, overripe, and heavily manipulated into oak-spiced beasts.