2009 Sandpiper Rosé

Candied strawberry, raspberry, red apple and rose petal aromas; pomegranate, tropical fruit, and bright strawberry flavors refresh and invigorate.

A good, solid, average growing season. Plenty of rain during the winter gave the vines a solid start. Budbreak, flowering, and veraison were right on schedule. It was a little cooler than usual, which led to some late ripening of some varieties, and early rains in November made harvest of those varieties a little trickier than usual.

This delicious summer wine is made up of 100% Coombsville region Syrah from the Porter Family Estate, Shearer, and Haynes vineyards, harvested on September 26th and 28th, 2009. While this may seem early (it’s around the time Chardonnay is generally harvested), these grapes were harvested at the perfect time for rosé wine – when the acids are still bright and the fruit flavors are in the red flavor stage of strawberries and raspberries, red currants and pomegranates. We utilized a Rhône yeast selection designed to ferment the wine slowly at a low temperature and maximize the fruity esters, around 58°F, and this year took the residual sugar to dryness. By using such a low fermentation temperature, we were able to retain all the great tropical volatile compounds that make this wine so delicious and unique, while still capturing classic rosé characteristics.

120 cases

Download the 2009 Sandpiper Rosé datasheet