We visited this winery in the beautiful Russian River Valley and its 65 ha of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir vines in 2013.  While there, we purchased two bottles – both for children’s high school graduation celebrations.  When the second one happened last week, we opened this 2008 Winter’s Cuvée.

Here we have a dry 72% Pinot Noir – 28% Chardonnay blend in which the dosage has been created with a brandy made from Joy Sterling’s distilled Pinot Noir and aged for 20 years. Only 250 cases were made.

The palest shade of lemon, this sparkling wine has a soft and persistent mousse.  The nose is very yeasty with lots of fresh bread, ripe, red apples, caramel and deep toffee.

On the palate, the high acidity is a refreshing compliment to the flavours of more bread, red and yellow apples, hazelnuts, walnuts, fig and pear.  There’s distinct lemon rind on the back end and the finish is long.

WSET Very Good plus, it made the perfect toast for Andrew’s escape from high school.