2022 Hartwick Vineyard ‘Preconceived Notions’ Skin-Fermented Muscat
Grapes: Muscat
Vineyard: Hartwick Vineyard
Owned and farmed by Jake and Shauna Des Boignes, Hartwick Vineyard is located in Lodi, CA. The vineyard was established and planted by Shauna’s grandparents. It’s mostly planted to orange muscat, with some grenache, mourvedre, fiano, and greco on the periphery.
Up until a few years ago, Jake and Shauna were well-established restauranteurs in San Francisco, and some of the first people to bring upscale farm-to-table dining to the Mission District. However, with Shauna’s farming upbringing and desire to raise their children with an agricultural understanding, Jake and Shauna left the city after many years and moved their family back to the family vineyard.
The couple farms the vineyard with plenty of intention. The vineyard is Lodi Rules-certified (a regional, sustainable winegrowing program), however, they go far beyond these certification standards and strive to farm the vineyard as holistically as possible.
AVA: Lodi
Method: The muscat grapes were split up into 3 lots for 3 different types of macerations. One was a carbonic maceration (some foot crushed grapes topped with uncrushed whole clusters) for 10 days with no cap management. The second was a fully destemmed maceration for 10 days with pumpovers daily. And the third was a partial destemmed/partial whole cluster maceration via the “hamburger method” (alternating layers of destemmed fruit and whole clusters). After 10 days, everything was pressed together and barreled down to neutral-oak barrels for 7 months. As always, no fining, filtration, or addition of SO2 in the making.
ABV: 11.7%
Cases: 545
Bottling Date: March 2023
Release Date: May 2023