2023 Two In The Hand

A coferment of 33% Petit Manseng, 30% Cabernet Franc, 14% Chambourcin, 10% Vidal Blanc, 10% Riesling, 3% Chardonel. Whoa this is lean and crunchy, juicy, spicy, eons of acid. In your face, mouthwatering cherry jolly rancher, I need some water type shit. This is, I dont wanna drink white (WTF??) but I dont wanna blast my palate with intensity so I can taste things, type shit. This is that cool summer dusk just before supper type shit. 199 cases produced.

FRUIT SOURCES
Bethany Ridge Vineyards Petit Manseng and Cabernet Franc, Bluestone Chambourcin, Baer Ridge Cabernet Franc, Webb Chambourcin, Rainbow Hill Vidal Blanc and Chardonel, Oxeye Riesling

WINEMAKING
What the hell are we doing here? I mean what are we ever doing?

We’re playing, we’re having fun, and we’re questioning why things are the way they are, and especially why someone would say they have to be that way. More specifically, we’re playing with all our grapes to make wine with a bit more material than the chillable red you might expect when looking at the %s of the grapes. This wine is a rare example of a co-ferment that we continued to build on with blending after harvest. Because of the heat and drought of 2023 growing season, the coferment was too powerful and aggressive, so we blended in Chambourcin and white grapes to soften the wine. This is also the first wine we ever had to add yeast and nutrients, near the end of fermentation, in order to finish the sugar and stabilize the wine, also owing to the effects of the drought on the chemistry. It still feels fully “red wine”, but with much more layered and alive aromatics and flavors, begging the question of why single varietal wines still dominate the wine space. That’s what we’re doing here.

CHEMISTRY
pH: 3.55
TA: 6.2 g/L
Free SO2 at bottling: 19 ppm
Alcohol: 13.2% abv
RS: <0.5 g/L
Malic Acid: <0.05 g/L
Acetic acid at bottling: 0.9 g/L