This wine has layers upon layers of interestingness. First and foremost is the taste-- I can't say I've ever tasted anything quite like this before. It was rich and dense yet had a lightness of being, with crazy aromas of melons, spices, pears, leaves, mushrooms and a hundred other things. The fermentation took years to go on in the frigid subterranean cellar of the North Rhone, and it still didn't quite make it to dry. Yet, the wine tastes dry, with the hint of RS really adding texture and body more than anything else. Winemaker Hirotake Ooka has noticed a correlation between long fermentations and higher acidity levels, and uses this to his advantage.
It's half marsanne, half roussane, and St. Peray is always white (AOC mandate). St. Peray itself is an interesting anomaly in the Northern Rhone-- the region has only 60 hectares under vine, white only, and they make still and sparkling (method traditional) wines. This 2005 was made with purchased grapes, but the newer vintages are from his own plots.
Hirotake limits sulphur use to a minimum, and he's currently experimenting with spraying essential oils so that he can avoid sulphur completely.
I have to say, this wine blew me away. It was delicious in its own right, but it also tests the boundaries of what wine can be, pushing them ever outward and creating diversity in an oft boring market. Or, more accurately, the wine re-claims and re-discovers what some wines most likely resembled before mass farming and agrochemicals.
Check out Wine Terroirs post on Hirotake for a truly exhaustive overview of the winery, Hirotake, his other wines, his new vineyards, his future plans, and also loads of amazing photos.
It's half marsanne, half roussane, and St. Peray is always white (AOC mandate). St. Peray itself is an interesting anomaly in the Northern Rhone-- the region has only 60 hectares under vine, white only, and they make still and sparkling (method traditional) wines. This 2005 was made with purchased grapes, but the newer vintages are from his own plots.
Hirotake limits sulphur use to a minimum, and he's currently experimenting with spraying essential oils so that he can avoid sulphur completely.
I have to say, this wine blew me away. It was delicious in its own right, but it also tests the boundaries of what wine can be, pushing them ever outward and creating diversity in an oft boring market. Or, more accurately, the wine re-claims and re-discovers what some wines most likely resembled before mass farming and agrochemicals.
Check out Wine Terroirs post on Hirotake for a truly exhaustive overview of the winery, Hirotake, his other wines, his new vineyards, his future plans, and also loads of amazing photos.
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