Trail Marker Wine Company Manchester Ridge Vineyard Chardonnay 2018

The fruit was gently foot-tread and the juice allowed to macerate on skins and crushed berries for 4 hours before being pressed to neutral French puncheons and barriques. This provided a bit of mid-pallet weight and balanced the nearly 11g/liter of natural acidity at harvest. Eschewing the use of sulfur and inert gas, the grape juice was intentionally “browned,” resulting in a crystalline and translucent final wine a year later. This was a very slow, native fermentation that stretched well into May before primary was complete. The result is a well structured wine with a bit of mid-palate richness that balances out the citrus oil acidity.