2023 Sweet Monte

For many years guests have been asking us for a sweet red wine. (We are listing it in the whites too as we treat it like a white wine). This year we decided to give you what you have been asking for and boy is it delicious! It has been flying out the door all summer, but would be wonderful all year round too. Our new Sweet Monte is made from Montepulciano grapes, which are our newest Italian variety. We have 3 vineyards of Montepulciano. Two vineyards we are making into a regular dry, aged red. The 3rd vineyard we decided to treat the grapes from here differently. Winemaker Freddy femented the grapes in stainless steel tanks. He stopped the fermentation early by chilling down the tanks, which killed the remaining yeast, and left some natural residual sugar. It is not overly sweet, just a perfect balance with the crisp acidity. We describe this wine as tasting like Sangria, because it really does. It is made to be served chilled, like a white wine. It has flavors of ripe cherries, freshly made rapsberry freezer jam, and bleuberries. It is totally unique and wildly delicious. With its lower alcohol content we have found in the tasting room that many beer drinkers like this wine as an alternative.

The label of our Sweet Monte was inspired by a photo we purchased at Ellis Island, in New York when we visited several years ago. We looked up our Great Grandfather's name in the list of new immigrants that came over from Italy way back in 1907 when many Italians were heading to America and were processed through Ellis Island. He was 18, traveling alone from Naples, Italy to join his brother in Brooklyn, NY. We could see his real signature in the ledger and the photo we purchased was of the exact ship he traveled over on, The Bulgaria. Our daughter, Isa, then took this photo and used it to create the image of this label. She pretended she was a sketch artist on the shore, doing a quick sketch of the ship that just anchored out with little dinghies nearby to bring those aboard to shore in their new country. Our regular two wine labels tell the story of our current famly, first with the white wine label and then with the red wine label. This label tells the story of what came before.

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