Wine Rasa

Our first Winemaker Dinner!

56 Degrees, a great wine store in Bernardsville, NJ, will be hosting a 4-course dinner with each course paired with one of our wines. The dinner is on July 29 at The Pluckemin Inn in Bedminster, NJ. Please join us.

 http://www.wineaccess.com/store/56degrees/newsletter.html?newsletter_id=205201

We just received our first perfect rating.

Rand Sealey, in his online publication http://reviewofwashingtonwines.com, has given our 2007 Principia Reserve Syrah a perfect score of 20/20 points (only his second perfect score).

Here is his review:

Named after Newton’s seminal work on the physical world, this is a faultless, compelling Syrah.

It displays a deep purplish color and decadent aromas of black cherries, cassis, blueberries, grilled berries and nuts, with scents of lavender, violets and oriental perfumes.

The sensuous exoticism continues on the palate with fleshy roasted yet refined flavors that ooze extracts of blackberry juice, kirsch liqueur, orange peel, licorice and squeezed blueberries, accompanied by mocha, bittersweet chocolate, hazelnut and dried berries.

The back palate shows tremendous depth, with notes of loess earth and wet stone minerals, and culminates in a lingering, complex two minute long finish that is marked by fine grained tannins, superb fruit-acid balance and roasted vanilla bean. 

All beautifully harmonized, this is the finest combination of strength and elegance I’ve found in a Washington Syrah so far.

20/20 points.

If you’d like to purchase some, please go to http://rasavineyards.com/order_form to place your order.

Founded in 2006, the Seattle Wine Awards has quickly become the most important wine recognition program in the country for Washington wines.

The wines are judged single blind – price ranges and varietals are known but the winery is not.

The Grand Awards Tasting is a great opportunity to taste these award winning wines. The tasting will be held at the Rainier Club in Seattle on Sunday, June 13th. For more information please visit http://www.seattlewineawards.com/tasting.html.

We are happy to announce that all four of our wines submitted garnered medals in their respective categories:

• 2009 The Composer Riesling – Bronze
• 2008 Vox Populi Mourvedre – Silver
• 2007 QED – Gold
• 2007 Principia Reserve Syrah – Double Gold

Official results of the 2010 Seattle Wine Awards will be posted on June 1st at http://seattlewineawards.com.

We will be pouring our wines at the Grand Awards Tasting on June 13th. We hope to see you there.

In early April, I spoke with someone interested in buying a vineyard. In order to get a bank loan, he needed to submit a business plan. “For a vineyard property?” I asked. We didn’t submit a business plan when we bought our property in 2007. But things are different now, banks are really tight with their lending. So, I helped him develop a business plan and financial projections.

Over the Spring Release Weekend, we poured our wines on May 1. Though we had less people come through compared to Holiday Barrel Weekend in December, we tripled our sales. More importantly, our most expensive wine, the 2007 Principia Reserve Syrah at $85, sold as well as our less expensive wines. Is this a good sign that people are feeling better about the economy?

I also run a small computer consulting company and my clients are starting to request more work. When small business starts spending, it’s always a good sign.

Now if only the banks would start lending again…

Rand Sealey reviewed our 2008 Vox Populi and the 2009 DuBrul Cab blend in his monthly online publication Review of Washington Wines (http://reviewofwashingtonwines.com). The Vox Populi is available on a pre-release discount of 20% ($36) through direct order only (pinto@rasavineyards.com) until May. The DuBrul Cab/Merlot blend will be available later in the year.

Here’s what he had to say:

2008 Vox Populi Mourvedre

Initially, this wine was to be blended with the winery’s QED, but turned out to be so compelling that it had to be bottled on its own. The “voice of the people” has spoken. It displays a deep ruby color and an intriguing nose of wild raspberries, exotic incense, orange peel, crushed roses and a whiff of white pepper. On the palate, it is rich and chewy, almost velvety, and the back shows a ripe, dried berry character that floats into a delicious fruit-acid balanced finish of pomegranate and raspberry juice. The ripe tannins make it approachable, but give enough support for it to age well. 19/20 points.

2008 Rasa Vineyard DuBrul Cab/Merlot Blend

During Winter Barrel tasting release weekend, I tasted the Rasa DuBrul Cabernet, which I found impressive. Since then the brothers decided to blend it with one-third DuBrul Merlot, making an even more stunning wine. It displays a deep ruby color, and the nose shows an exotic character that is unusual for a “Bordeaux” blend – sultry wild berries and black cassis, oriental incense, jasmine, crushed roses and sandalwood. The flavors are thick and mouth encompassing, expressing complex textures of ripe berry fruits, orange peel, licorice, milk chocolate, French roast coffee and a trace of burnt caramel. The lingering ultra ripe, yet restrained, fine grained tannin finish, laced with vanilla bean and toast (70% new oak) lasts over 2 minutes. 19.5+/20 points. Has the potential to go to 20.

We just sent out a mailer last night offerring our new Riesling on pre-release. If you’re interested in purchasing some, send an email to pinto@rasavineyards.com.

Here’s the text of the mailer:

Dear Friends,

We love great Riesling. The best Riesling is grown in Germany, Austria, Alsace, and, yes, Eastern Washington. So when we were offered access to old vine Riesling from a great vineyard, we had to say yes. After all, old vine fruit is hard to get in Washington state.

We received two tons from Dionysus Vineyard located in the Columbia Valley. The vines were planted in 1974 and are most  probably the Geisenheim 110 clone (“most probably” is the best we could determine).

We also purchased two more tons of Riesling from the Bacchus Vineyard. Dionysus and Bacchus are sister vineyards sitting next to each other. They share the same terroir since the fruit is literally separated by a small dirt road. The Bacchus Riesling is from young vines and is a combination of two clones - the Geisenheim 198 and the Neustadt 90.

The combination of 3 clones, young and old vines, and the terroir of the vineyards has made for a compelling wine.

The Composer is a richly textured, inviting Riesling that offers heady aromatics of ripe pear, pineapple, honeysuckle, minerals and petrol. The crisp, vibrant acidity gives the wine great structure and is counterbalanced by a delicate sweetness that lingers across a long, clean finish. The wine is focused, complex, and impeccably balanced.

As my brother says, “The wine is really good, can’t put the glass down!”

The Composer was bottled in March and will be released on May 1 during Spring Release Weekend. We are offering a pre-release price of $24/bottle to our mailing list customers. A discount of 20%.

After release, the wine will retail for $30.

The Composer is not available through our website.

Please respond to this email with your order.

Hope to see you over Spring Release Weekend. Thank you for your support.

Spring Release Weekend is less than a month away!

Please join us to celebrate the release of our 2008 Vox Populi Mourvedre and our 2009 The Composer Riesling.
 
On Saturday May 1, we will be pouring our wines from 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM at the Artifex custom crush facility located at 1102 Dell Avenue in Walla Walla.
 
We will pour the 2008 Vox Populi, 2009 The Composer, 2008 QED, and a barrel sample (or two).

Cadaretta will also be pouring their wines at Artifex. The Artifex tasting fee of $5 allows you to taste wines from both Cadaretta and Rasa Vineyards.

If you are planning on attending the Spring Release Weekend, please be sure to visit us.

I’ll be in Walla Walla this week to taste through our barrels. We’ll be bottling 3 wines in the middle of March and we need to make some key decisions this week. Aside from the 2008 QED, we will bottle two new wines – a 2008 Mourvedre and a 2009 Riesling.
 
The Mourvedre is from Minick Vineyard in Prosser. We weren’t planning on making a 100% Mourvedre wine but the quality is so high, we decided to make a varietal wine out of it.

2009 was our first vintage for making a white wine – a Riesling. I love riesling. 50% of the grapes are from Dionysus Vineyard and 50% are from Bacchus Vineyard. Since both the vineyards are right next to each other, the terroir is the same. I liked the way our Riesling was tasting in early December. I’m really excited about how this is going to turn out.
 
Both the labels for the Mourvedre and Riesling are done and we should get TTB approval this week. Then we’ll get them printed just in time for bottling - nothing like a tight schedule.

On Feb 2, Rasa Vineyards will be one of 16 wineries taking part in the Taste Walla Walla event at the City Winery in New York. We will be pouring the 2007 QED and the 2007 Principia Reserve Syrah.

Advanced ticket pricing is $35 per person. After Jan 24, tickets are $50 per person. Please click thumbnail for further details.

If you are in the area, please join us.

Rand Sealey is a 40-year veteran of the Washington wine industry.  His Review of Washington Wines (http://reviewofwashingtonwines.com) is a monthly on-line publication.  Here’s what he had to say about our 2007 QED and 2007 Principia:

2007 QED

Composed of 94% Syrah with the balance Grenache and Mourvedre, this wine exhibits a deep ruby color and a rich, smoky raspberry, black cherry and blueberry nose. The red/black fruit flavors are expansive and forward, yet focused, multilayered with notes of licorice, earth, leather, cocoa, coffee and vanilla bean notes and a definite sense of terroir (rasa in Sanskrit). The finish goes on and on, marked by a chewy texture and ripe tannins. 19/20 points.

2007 Principia

Named after Newton’s seminal work on the physical world, this is a compelling Syrah. It shows a deep purplish color and a classic, smoky raspberry, blackberry, cigar box and bramble nose. The flavors are thick and multidimensional, with exotic sweet/dry flavors oozing out from the extracts, followed by licorice, mocha, bittersweet chocolate, hazelnut and almond, and dried berry notes. The fine-grained tannin finish goes on and on. This is one of the best Syrahs I’ve tasted this year. 19.5/20 points.