Scheurebe is a cross between Riesling and an “unknown wild vine,” which makes total sense in the glass. There is nobility here, however, there’s an unmistakable sauvage note…almost musky in a way. Noble and dishonorable, simultaneously. This is gonna sound loco, but I often think this wine smells like a traditional Thanksgiving plate at your gram’s house.
The 2023 Abandoned Meander (a label uniquely dedicated to vineyards that are going the way of the dodo, never to be seen again, being ripped out or replanted, or in this case - a vineyard block that was slated for re-planting and then miraculously saved from the chopping block *see below*), is from an all but top secret block on the Joseph Phelps estate in Rutherford.
Soil: colluvial rocky, gravelly loam derived from sandstone and schist;
Aspect: steep, east facing
Elevation: 800 ft
Vine Training: bilateral cordon
Vine age: 25 yrs
The Winemaking
100% Scheurebe
Whole cluster, direct to press
Natural primary fermentation, no temperature control or fermentation aids of any sort
Full native malolactic conversion
10 months on lees in Flextank egg, one racking prior to blending/bottling
Unfired / unfiltered
*Sometimes it comes to pass that a heralded Napa Valley estate decides to end production on their basically unknown and super limited production late harvest dessert style wine made from the equally unknown Scheurebe grape and replant to something else more ... ‘desirable’ let’s say. When this happens, sometimes Steve Matthiasson is approached about it and is offered the fruit to make a ‘last
hurrah’ type thing. In this case, Steve didn’t need to take all the fruit off the vineyard to supply his needs and he then offered the remaining fruit to Jolie Laide, which they happily accepted. Jolie Laide ended up not needing all the fruit THEY were offered, at which point Scott Schultz of JL called me. “Dude, want some Napa Valley Phelps Vineyard Scheurebe?!” Who WOULDN’T lol at that question?! Of course I had to take it. With aromatic white grape proclivities that often resemble something off an episode of ‘Hoarders,’ there’s no way I could say no, actually. Well, here we are, a year later and she’s in bottle and released to the world from all three producers now. And wouldn’t you know it...Phelps seems to have liked the results of these producers enough to go on and keep the vines in the ground and carry on working with it, perhaps in a different manner now. Long story short, we can’t get it again. #SaveTheScheurebe
