2021 Organic Vision Flint
From the Labyrinth, we’ve made an orange wine called “Flint”.
About Flint:
Our Vidal grapes, grown in The Labyrinth were the last grapes we harvested in 2021. Our philosophy for natural winemaking is that the grapes have to have the right properties, naturally, at harvest to ultimately make a tasty, balanced, and age-worthy wine. We hung in there while the naturally high malic acid decreased as the grape berries matured and October 30, the conditions were ideal. Hand-harvested bunches of Vidal were sorted to remove any late-season rot or debris such as desiccated berries. These whole clusters (stems and all) were tipped to a 5T fermenter where three kinds of fermentation took place simultaneously: intra-berry enzymatic fermentation (also known as (partial) carbonic maceration), alcoholic fermentation, and malolactic fermentation (ML). As the microbes did their job of converting grape sugars to alcohol, the temperature rose to 28C, allowing the extraction of colour and flavour from the grape skins. The resulting wine was pressed after 25 days on skins and stems, then allowed to settle for about 3.5 months before bottling without fining, filtering, or added sulphites. Because the wine has not been filtered and is made without sulphites, it is completely dry and alive. It will evolve and change almost continuously.
Tasting Note:
It's hard to write a tasting note for natural wines, however, early characteristics include fuzzy peach, jasmine, rosewater, and tea on the nose with herbal flavours, mouth-filling volume, and tannins on the mid-palate and zest and tea-textured finish. If you like our Amber Pinot Gris, this is certainly a wine to try. Like other orange wines, we recommend experimenting with food matches...it is fun and easier than you think with this style of wine. We like to pair it with curries or Thai spices - with lower alcohol at 10.2% even spicy-hot works. Flint is a winner when grazing is on the menu, it matches with a multitude of flavours and food styles.
Why FLINT?
Joining our line-up of gemstone-named natural wines: Amber, Ruby, Perle…Flint promotes strength and courage (good qualities in these difficult times), inner peace, and restful sleep. FLINT was used in early times to make tools, knives, and other useful things that helped homo sapiens succeed. The characteristic to create sparks (for lighting fire) is unique. Flint is also a type of quartz. We use quartz crystals in biodynamic Prep 501 (horn silica) to bring light and lightness to the farm and balance earthly forces. And finally, a fun fact: Clear wine bottles are known as "flint" - we love to use light weight flint bottles for our natural wines since they support our values (lower carbon footprint and recyclable) and support our wish to be transparent in all that we do.