2022 Clarion WV Pinot Noir

More trespass than trample

The Cliff Notes: The color is translucent ripe raspberry red. The nose is blue taffy, purple grape and green tobacco. The palate aligns on raspberry and white strawberry, cherry, and watermelon rind, leaving a perception of overwhelmingly long, fresh and red. It’s a swath cut across your summer evening, a kind disrupter.

The Story: This wine’s not really about terroir or age-ability. It plays as a summer, chill-able red. It blurs the line of color and fruit with the acidity and structure of a white. Spinning heads on patios is not such a bad thing.

Fermentation: It’s clean 100% native yeast fermented Pinot noir from 2022. We started with a cool red ferment of the grapes on their skins to the point of vivid color, vibrant flavor and only the slightest kiss of tannin. At a precise moment we pressed, taking the juice off its skins and putting it into barrel, where we could build massive fruit esters and thereafter finish it in the manner of a dry, aromatic, white.

Elevage: 100% barrel aged in older French oak barrels. Aged using lees addition and flipping the extinct Champagne methodologies we normally use to instead promote color and broaden an earthy mid-palate. Racked once and filtered prior to bottling January 2023.

Vineyards: This is a single vineyard wine farmed biologically intensively by the JKC team off of our organically certified St. Dolores Estate (13 years) surrounding the winery.

— Jim Prosser, owner/winemaker