2006 Columbia Valley Sauvignon Blanc

Philosophy

This wine was inspired from the wines of the Loire. We have always admired the completeness of the Sancerre wines. This style of Sauvignon Blanc has the ability to create a white wine that showed more than just acidity to cut through spicy foods or a hot summer day. We liked the fact that Sauvignon Blanc from Sancerre had that little bit extra. A wine that you could sit and deconstruct, or sit on your patio and enjoy. We aimed to produce a wine for the connoisseur and the consumer alike. The Stillwater Creek Sauvignon Blanc is certainly a wine to be taken seriously, for we often hear people mention they don't like Sauvignon Blanc but they certainly like this.

Growing Season

The weather was nearly ideal. A mild but rainy spring helped produce tight bunches of small berries on the vines, adding to the potential for well-structured, deeply flavored wines. Summer fell into a consistent pattern of dry weather- hot days and cool nights. Just when growers in the state's warm regions worried about sugar levels soaring while the flavors lagged, cool and slightly damp conditions arrived in September.

Winemaking

 

This Sauvignon Blanc is the first white wine to be fermented in our new concrete eggs. Concrete fermentation allows us to express the fruit and the vineyard and not the ability to choose oak barrels.  The nose is rich with grapefruit, mineral and a hint of almond. The palate is very expressive with a clean burst of mouth filling fruit and acidity. This wine is built to enjoy over the next three years as it evolves in the bottle.