2022 Santa Barbara County Albarino - Orange
The wine making goal for the Orange Albarino is to retain the flavors of the freshly picked fruit and not to mask it with oak or other distracting components
Wine Making Style:
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as opposed to white wine making, where we press the grapes the day of harvest to separate the juice from skins, seeds and stems, we treated these grapes just like they were red grapes: they were destemmed into one of our fermenters and left on their skins
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after destemming they cold soaked for 3 days with two daily pump-overs
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we let the fermenters reach room temperature after which the natural, wild fermentations kicked in. no man-made yeast – we just let nature do her job.
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the fermenters were hand punched twice a day to facilitate optimal extraction of colors, tannins and flavors. the flavors during fermentation were awesome! tannins in white wines? yes!
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after completed primary fermentation we drained the free run to tank and gently pressed the rest
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when the wine had settled for a few days, we racked it to stainless barrels
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we did not start the secondary fermentation (malolactic) – we like the crisp malic acid
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the wine is a little cloudy from the skin fermentation we decided not to filter it – it’s a “funky town” wine!
