Progress Update – Marsanne/Roussanne “Cépages d’Or”

TERMINIM 2017 – Mendocino County Marsanne/Roussanne “Cépages d’Or” Alder Springs Vineyard

Up front – total production is 138 cases (actually 279 cases – 6/750 ml) –

Currently only available in California. Donald and François visited Alder Springs Vineyard at the beginning of August 2017 to meet with Stu Bewley and work out a beginning of a new wine project that became named later as TERMINIM. Stu agreed to sell the two winemakers 2 tons of Marsanne and 1 ton of Roussanne grapes for a white Rhône-styled blend. “Cépages d’Or” or Golden Grapes is a reference to the color of both Marsanne and Roussanne upon arrival at the winery.

The grapes were harvested on September 13th (Marsanne) at 21o Brix and October 2nd (Roussanne) at 23.5o Brix. In both cases, the grapes were whole cluster pressed and moved to barrel for a native yeast fermentation. The wines were initially kept separate but were blended and returned to barrel early in April 2018. The cuvée included 1 new French Oak barrel out of a total production of 6 barrels. It is a fresh and lively white wine with pretty peach and pineapple aromas and no significant barrel overtones. The Cépages d’Or was neither fined or filtered prior to bottling.

Progress Update – Marsanne/Roussanne “Cépages d’Or”