2021 Cadenza Vineyards Petit Verdot

 I can get very introspective when I think/taste/ponder our Petit Verdot.  Mind you, Petit Verdot is not--in and of itself--a very introspective wine.  In fact, it's quite the opposite.  Petit Verdot is like the loud American crashing a French dinner party.  Sure, you're curious about him--and there's something about his charisma--but ultimately he's still loud.

Petit Verdot makes me think.  Deeply.  When I was a young winemaker, I tasted wines with Cabernet Sauvignon at their core--thanks, John!--and I was mesmerized.  It's not the same intoxicating infatuation one gets from Burgundy--Pinot Noir--but rather a synthesis of an analytic dialectic as it confronts the unquestionable mystery of sensorial apperception.  

Years ago, when I asked my friend John--best intuitive winemaker I ever knew--how to compose the best wine he knew from this small place in Brogue, he responded with 75% Cabernet Sauvignon/15% Merlot/10% Cabernet Franc....and (if he allowed himself the luxury), he would drop the CS to 65% and raise the Merlot to 25%.

Fast forward twenty years and I'm tasting Petit Verdot that we've grown and bottled here in Brogue.  (The 2021 vintage that we're about to release is in my glass tonight.)  The thoughts race through the gray matter in my skull, and I consider the consequences.  For a Bordeaux purist, to add more than 10% or Petit Verdot to a wine would render it a rustic/tannic/acidic monster.  How more American can you get?

 I get it.  No one has ever accused me of being too delicate and sensitive and elegant when making wine.  I like aggressive/in-your-face characters.  I'm American.  And--maybe more importantly--half-Vik...I mean, half-Swedish.  No matter how much I studied Hindu and Zen Buddhist philosophy, nothing can outweigh the DNA that is Norse.  I may love to consider the koan and how to dharma leads me to the release of samsara, but at the bottom of it all, I need a flagon of mead and a wallop on the skull in the form of Petit Verdot.

This--yes, this!--informs what I am as a winemaker.  I make wine DAMMIT.  Sure, I'm not in the perfect place to do so, and I don't have the funds to pay for a fancy dancy tasting room to taste the wine in.  But what I make is unapologetically unrefined and uncompromisingly  the best wine we can make, and it has character and volume and crass and opinion.  It is Petit Verdot.

 I can tell you all sorts of reasons why Jon never planted/grew/vinified Petit Verdot, and they really don't matter.  John made wine here from 1978 through 2000.  This is 2021, and the Petit Verdot we're releasing is pure and unadulterated.  It's power and strength and concentration and structure.  It's what Cadenza is about in 2024.  End of story.