2022 Return to the Beginning
Return to the Beginning refers to the cyclical nature of life and time - not the quantitative, chronological, and sequential version of time, but the qualitative and permanent experience of time. Dawn leads to dusk, leads to dawn again. The tides come in, the tides go out, the tides come in again.
In our opinion, this cyclical nature of time is a truer understanding of time, from an experiential perspective. The earth moves around the sun and that’s a year. The earth spins on its axis and that’s a day. The reality of time is this circular and repetitive manifestation of our physical movement through space. Similarly, in life, you arrive at what you think is the end of something and you’re right back at the beginning again.
Why did this concept strike us with this wine? At the same time that we got to what we had imagined as some kind of end point in our project - achieving the goal of building and licensing our own land-based winery) - we had the unexpected opportunity to return to working with the first vineyard we ever made wine from - the esteemed Secrest Mountain Vineyard in Oliver, BC. These grapes went into the 2016 and 2017 Pinot Blanc orange wines, and are very symbolic of how we got our start. This experience reminded us that the beginning and the end are actually the same thing.
This wine loves pretending to be an off-dry Riesling, while shattering our perceptions of what Chardonnay is supposed to be
Drink this after climbing to the top of a mountain, before you descend the other side
One word Cycle
Winemoji ⭕
Haiku Tropical Spirit
Plumpish from every angle
Endowed with golden richness
Specifications
- Alcohol 13.7%
- Acidity 5.100 g/L
- Aging 4 months in stainless steel
- Bottling Date March 20, 2023
- Country Canada
- Farming Organic
- ph 3.27
- Producer Rigour & Whimsy
- Region Okanagan
- Residual sugar 18.04 g/L
- Sulfites Added 11.00 mg/L
- Varietal Chardonnay
- Vineyard Secrest Mountain Vineyard
- Vintage 2022
- Winemaker Costa Gavaris, Félix Lasnier
Winemaker Notes
This is the first vintage of Return to the Beginning, which is a barrel fermented chardonnay made from organically grown grapes. This wine shares a design vibe with last years Bite of the Dragon, and continues the story we began to tell, including an Shamalanian twist right at the end.
You might recall that Bite of the Dragon was a Riesling made in the style of a barrel fermented Chardonnay. This is because of our deep and undying love of Chardonnay, especially in Chablis. So, when we were able to get a great source of Chard, we knew exactly what we were going to aim for. As the 2022 vintage rounded into form we realized that all of our grapes for still wine were coming in a 6 day period. This posed logistical challenges, so when the grower of these vines offered to transport them to us free of charge we gratefully accepted. In so doing we gave up some control on the picking date, and only lately learned of some subjective differences in Chardonnay style with the grower preferring a riper style.
We made this wine by whole cluster direct pressing the grapes. Settling the juice overnight and then racking to barrels where it fermented and then aged on full solids before being racked and bottled. Now here’s the twist. Because of the high degree of ripeness we struggled to ferment this wine to dry. We used some organic yeast nutrient to try and help our wild yeast friends finish the job. We also submerged little heaters in the barrels to keep them snuggly and warm. But, it seems they got a little lazy living in such a high alcohol wine, and they just quit working with about 18 g/L of sugar remaining. Our next course of intervention would have been to pitch an alcohol tolerant yeast strain to see if that could budge the sugars. However, we tasted the wine and found it to be delicious and in balance. The irony here being that after making a Riesling in the style of a Chardonnay, we have now unintentionally made a Chardonnay in the style of an off-dry riesling. We know this sounds a bit weird, but we also believe that it is so delicious that you won’t mind.
Cheers!
Costa