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Sleight of Hand Cellars

I tasted on a Saturday morning at the end of June with co-owners/winemakers Trey Busch and Jerry Solomon and production winemaker Keith Johnson, just after they had returned from a tour of British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. Busch described 2016 as “a hot vintage that behaved like a cool year due to the cool-down in August and September.” That followed an April 1 budbreak, the earliest in Walla Walla Valley in his experience. And owing to the early budding, hang time in 2016 was two weeks longer than in 2015.

Busch and Solomon, who co-own 18.5 acres of Syrah in the Stoney Vine vineyard in The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater with Dusted Valley, is now relying on spontaneous fermentations for this fruit. “Fruit from The Rocks has very aggressive yeasts and the temperature of fermentation can get up to a hundred degrees [Fahrenheit],” he explained, “and the wines never have any trouble finishing.” But this fruit is reductive by nature, and Busch and Solomon have been moving their Syrah program increasingly to 300- and 500-liter barrels (from 225 to 300 liters previously), which also helps them soften the overall impact of the oak.

From Focus on Washington: The New Normal (Nov 2018) by Stephen Tanzer

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2016 Chardonnay The Enchantress Old Vine

Release Price: $28

Color: White

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