Insubordination 20-Year Dessert Wine

More tawny port, less Tawny Kitaen

The Cliff Notes: The color is the red-orange of Fine Grade A maple syrup. The nose is a warm complex of Heath bar, raisin tart, brown butter cake, pecan pie and root beer. The expectation is of sweet, but the attack is that of lively orange-brown fruits, ripe apricot, baked apple, cinnamon and pineapple upside down cake. After a lengthy ride the second half of the palate satisfies expectations with well-balanced sweetness riding a rip curl of acid. It finishes going away like that last bit of apple pie wiped from your plate by the tine of your fork: “Maybe just one more sliver.”

The Story: This wine was trouble. It started in 2000 as two barrels of Pinot from my time at Brick House that didn’t make the cut and became a science experiment and the base of this solera. It was fashioned not dissimilarly to a tawny port, but in the style of an Australian Rutherglen “sticky.” It became a wine of intention, to which over the years we added everything (natural): color removal and mid-palate via lees, fortification via Chardonnay and Pinot Gris spirits, frozen Muscat, Chardonnay and Pinot noir additions — the veritable kitchen sink.

Fermentation & Elevage: The base was 100% native yeast fermented Pinot noir from 2000, 100% barrel aged in older French oak barrels under a solera system, whereby fractional amounts of the oldest wine, bottled or evaporated, is topped up by the second oldest, which is in turn topped up by the third oldest and so on. The additions were native started then fortified with high proof Chardonnay spirits as a means of preserving complex sweetness.

— Jim Prosser
Owner/winemaker