2012 Harvest Update
We are now done bringing in the fruit for the 2012 harvest. Harvest started on October 9th with Viognier coming from Osoyoos for Wapiti Cellars. This was quickly followed by Chardonnay, from the Naramata Bench, on the 15th and 16th of October for Foxtrot Vineyards. The whites this year are characterized by intense fruit flavours and structure along with great acidity and bodes well for the long term age worthiness of these wines.
The first Pinot Noir was brought in on October 22nd from the Raisin D’être vineyard and was followed by Foxtrot’s home vineyard and Erickson vineyard the following days. Similar to the white grapes, the Pinot Noirs all have good acidity this year and good tannin ripeness. After a six day cold soak to extract maximum flavour, stabilize colour and begin the process of fine tannin extraction all the fermenters are now in the winery beginning their primary fermentations. We will be doing manual punch downs three times per day and at the end of fermentation the free run wine will be removed from the fermenters and the remaining skins gently pressed in our bladder press. The first fruit to be pressed will be the Raisin D’être fruit with the Erickson and Foxtrot Vineyard Pinot Noir being the last.
We are very excited by the quality of this years fruit and will send another update when the fermentations are complete.
Update on Previous Vintages
We recently opened up two bottles out of our wine library. The first was a bottle of the 2004 Foxtrot Vineyard Pinot Noir, our inaugural vintage. The wine is still showing beautifully with very earthy aromas and flavours characteristic of aged Pinot Noir. The tannins were extremely smooth and the wine still showed good balance on the palate with a long finish that lasted for nearly sixty seconds. For those of you who are lucky enough to still have a bottle or more in your cellar we believe the wine is now at its peak and should be drank within the next year.
The Other bottle we opened was the 2008 Foxtrot Vineyards Chardonnay, also our inaugural release of Chardonnay. The wine, to state it bluntly, blew us away. Intense tropical and citrus fruit aromas continued on to the palate with tremendous mineral notes and perfect integration of the french oak. The richness on the mid palate and great acidity characteristic of the cold 2008 vintage made for a tremendously long finish to the wine. In light of how well the wine is drinking at the moment we would recommend drinking it now and if you have more bottles laying those bottles down for a while longer.
As those of you who purchased the now sold out Foxtrot Vineyards 2010 Reserve Pinot Noir know, we will continue to update our mailing list members on how the wines are progressing as they bottle age. Hopefully this will aid our customers in deciding when to open and enjoy their Foxtrot Vineyards wines.
Upcoming Releases
Foxtrot Vineyards will soon be releasing the 2011 Chardonnay. As the 2011 crop was much smaller than previous years there will not be as much available. We will be sending out release details to our mailing list in the coming weeks.
Gustav Allander