Gemischter Satz 'Victor Weiser' 2023

The Koth family has been farming the Mokelumne Glen vineyard since the early 1960’s when they bought the property, which was planted in classic Lodi fashion to Zinfandel. After a revelation about their heritage as it related to farming and the discovery of unfamiliar wines consumed in Germany, they decided to pull out all of the old vines and a pear orchard in order to focus on raising wines from unique German and Austrian varieties. The vineyard blocks are mostly Kerner, Riesling and Spatburgunder. To a lesser degree is Blaufränkisch and Dornfelder. The budwood comes from their library block dubbed ‘The German Collection’ contains 52 unique varieties. This acre block was offered to us in 2023 and we jumped at the chance to try our hand at a true American Gemischter Satz. We picked all of the fruit on August 26. Several varieties were very ripe while others were still quite tart.

The Cellar:

Crushed with the stems and basket pressed for an overnight settle, the must was racked to tank where it underwent a native yeast fermentation. The wine was racked to neutral oak barrels for malolactic fermentation and a short elevage. Bottled unfiltered and unfined 5 months later.