Wine Rasa

Here is a list of our fruit sources for 2010:

 Les Collines Vineyard

• Block 35 Syrah - this Syrah is the predominant component of our QED
• Block 50 Syrah - usually goes into the QED
• Viognier - we use this to coferment with the Block 35 Syrah 

Seven Hills Vineyard

• Block 10 Syrah - this Syrah is used in QED and other labels

Bacchus Vineyard

• Block 5a Syrah - our second year, we hope to make a single-vineyard wine 
• Block 1b Riesling - this fruit is used for The Composer
• Block 1c Riesling - this fruit is used for The Composer 

Dionysus Vineyard

• Block 17 Riesling - this old vines fruit is used for The Composer
• Block 15 Merlot - this is the second year we’ve worked with this fruit
• Block 11 Cab - our third year, hoping to make a single-vineyard wine 

Weinbau Vineyard 

• Block 12 Merlot - this is the first time we’ve gotten this fruit
• Block 13 CF - were hoping to make some single-vineyard Cab Franc

DuBrul Vineyard

• Merlot ’92 Block - our first time with this Merlot, very excited
• Merlot ’02 Block - our third year with this Merlot, used for Creative Impulse
• Cab ’97 Block - our third year with this Cab, used for Creative Impulse 

Kiona Vineyard

• Old Block Cab - our second year, hoping to make a single-vineyard wine

Alder Ridge Vineyard

• Mourvedre - we use this for QED

Minick Vineyards

• Mourvedre - we use this for QED and Vox  Populi
• Grenache - we use this for QED

Kilian Vineyard

• Riesling - first time, hoping to make a single-vineyard Riesling 

The 2010 harvest has officially started for Rasa Vineyards. On Monday we got our first fruit – 1.3 tons of Dionysus Merlot.

So far things are looking good. With bud break about 10 days late and a cooler than usual summer, we need a long Indian summer for our fruit to ripen. If it does, this is going to be a great vintage.

This is our fourth vintage and I what I’m noticing this year that wasn’t there the previous years is that flavor development is way ahead of ripening. As an example, I’ve noticed good flavor development in our Seven Hills Syrah when it was at 18 Brix.

The Riesling has better flavors than last year and all of our blocks are affected by botrytis. Botrytis is a double-edged sword. With botrytis, we can make some fantastic dessert wine and this year, with the amount of good botrytis affecting our grapes, we will look to make a dessert wine.

The downside to botrytis is that we also want to make our off-dry Riesling – The Composer. A little bit of botrytis can cause coloring problems. While having a golden colored dessert wine is acceptable, it’s not acceptable if the Riesling is off-dry. We have to be very careful in separating the botrytised fruit at picking and again at the sorting table.

The other concern for the Riesling is the high acids. On 9/28, one block of our Riesling was at 22.2 Brix and titratable acidity at 1.04 g/100mL. It’s crazy.

While I expect the fruit quality to be exceptional for some of the varieties, I think it’s a challenging year for the winemaker. Because of the higher acids, I think the grapes are going to be picked at higher brix. Winemakers need to tread carefully.

A few weeks ago we met John Sosnowy, his daughter Kori Voorhees and her husband Colby Voorhees. They, along with John’s wife LaGayle, started winepeeps.com. John and Kori are the primary contributors.

Here’s a nice article about Rasa Vineyards written by Kori Vorhees: http://winepeeps.com/2010/09/22/spotlight-on-rasa-vineyards-wow-alert/

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.