2019 La Piquette, California

In a grape, 95% of tannins reside in the skin and seeds, with very little in the pulp. In traditional white wine production, the juice is pressed off immediately, allowing for hardly any contact with these tannin-rich materials. The process for making La Piquette is to press the juice out of the white grapes. The leftover grape skins are called pomace. Pomace is generally discarded as there is no need for it after we have extracted the juice from the white grapes. In the Piquette process, I add EC1118 yeast to the top of the grape skins and allow the pomace to ferment for 4 days. By the end of 4 days of fermentation, the pomace has softened and I throw the pomace back in the press. What is pressed out is a skin-contact white wine that is orange to amber in color and has a higher level of tannin and mouthfeel from the skin-contact. The result is the most aromatic wine I have ever made. Like, seriously. It helps that I chose three very aromatic varieties (Gewürzt, Riesling and Muscat) to accompany the reasonable nature of Chardonnay.