2023 Llewelyn 'Juvenilia' Wine + Apple Coferment
The cuvee changes every year, this current release is 50% Syrah, 40% Chenin Blanc, and around 10% Gravenstein Apple.
The Syrah is from AMT vineyard in Calpella, Mendocino County, about thirty minutes north of the winery. The Syrah is destemmed and macerated for 6 days. The Chenin is from Saureel Vineyard in El Dorado County. I allow myself one stupid, long drive per harvest, and having spent years going to the Sierras with Caleb, it felt right to finally give it a try. Saureel is charming and old-timey, with lots of horses, rolling dusty hills, and a sky dotted with buteos. The Gravensteins are from Sebastopol, from Aaron Brown at Bardos. I woke up early to press the Syrah, saved the pomace, drove out to pick apples with Aaron, then pressed the cider and put it on the Syrah skins. After a long day of trucking back and forth, I let the cider macerate on the Syrah for one day. Everything was blended in the late fall, some in tank, some in barrels. Aromatically, it smells very Californian - deeply perfumed with black fruit and musk. The cherry and fresh bay quality I adore in Californian Syrah is dominant. Despite the aroma, the wine has a lot of lift and freshness. Some see "water" in wine descriptions as negative, but we in Cloverdale view it as curative and life-giving, maybe agua is the more fitting word. The Gravenstein mirrors the Chenin, with a touch more lift without verging at all cider-y.
I aimed to create something like the wine you find at a charming hole-in-the-wall restaurant in southern Italy or somewhere equally Mediterranean. While that wine might be an awful co-op product, I’m just trying to capture its energy and intention: something moody and dark with life-affirming electricity, preferably ice cold and transportive. Best enjoyed outside at dusk, with dappled light, somewhere between still sweating from your walk and noticing the wind picking up, wishing you hadn’t left your sweatshirt at the hotel.
TL;DR: Syrah doing an impression of Dr. Pepper (on pebble ice), cherries, sagebrush and bay leaf.
-Winemaker Pete Bloomberg