2008 Big Boss Pink

2008 White Sangiovese

Vineyard: Bruce's Vineyard Madera AVA
Composition: 100% Sangiovese
Yeast: L2056 Rhône
Nutrients: dAP
Harvest: 31-Aug-2008
Brix: 25
Acid at harvest: .83 @ 3.09pH
Gently crushed by the feet of babes (Michelangelo age 5 and Isabella age 2)
Aged Sur-Lie
Bottled: Apr-2009
Alcohol: ±13¾ ABV
Production: 7 Bottles

A rosé is most often industrial waste. It is what is left over when a winemaker is attempting to increase the colour or tannins in his red wine through a practice called "saignée". Saignée is the bleeding of must off of the skins prior to maceration. This vintage is no exception. The grapes in this wine began as ⅓ of the grapes that Laurette, Stacy, and I picked on a hot August morning down the road from the Pacific Ethanol plant. Laurette took ⅓ and I split my ⅔ in half as an experiment to see if saignée would improve the red, so I pulled ⅓ of the juice out of ½ my must and fermented it as a white on the fine lees.
After bleeding off the must, the TA dropped to .65 so in attempt to lower the pH tartaric acid was added.

The short skin contact time, and the poor sulfite control leaves the resulting rosé an almost apricot colour. SaraGrace likes it as well as any commercially available pink wine.