Every year seems to bring with it new challenges and opportunities, even so, with modern methods the tools are available to make the same thing year after year, and it would be easy, safe. At Devium we don’t do easy or safe. With each vintage it seems that our wines morph, and twist, they move like living things. We wouldn’t have it any other, it is a privilege and an honor to share them with you.
The largest single factor in the changes to this release stem from the extreme freeze in January 2024. Grapevines are truly remarkable plants and many of them weathered the cold in a way that completely changed our perception of what these vines can withstand, but certain sites and certain varieties were much more heavily impacted. So, we adjusted out expectations, changed our plans, and are so very proud to present some of the most exciting wines that we have released to date.
New Releases:
2023 Les Collines Vineyard White Wine – 45% Grenache Blanc, 28% Roussanne, 27% Viognier
In the last couple of vintages, I have become obsessed with time. The time required for extraction, the time it takes for fermentation to complete, the time that a wine rests in tank, in barrel, in bottle. Every one of these factors plays a vital part in making up the profile and personality of a wine. With this wine, I seem to always be looking for just a little more time. Unlike the 2022 vintage, I chose to foot tread and macerate this white wine on the skins for 4 days. I find more and more that a short maceration on white wines helps to bring out texture, tension, and personality. Beyond adding time in maceration, I also felt that this wine could benefit from more time in barrel and in bottle, so I doubled the amount of barrel aging to a year and held the wine in bottle for an additional 6 months before release. The results are transformational. The 2023 vintage retains all of the freshness and focus of the 2022, but with added depth and vigor. I couldn’t be happier with the direction this wine is going.$28.00
2023 WeatherEye Vineyard Roussanne – 100% Roussanne
Another wine to benefit from additional time is the 2023 WeatherEye Roussanne. In this case, I kept the maceration relatively similar to previous vintages at two weeks, however, I extended the barrel aging from 11 to 17 months. The added time in barrel has allowed the wine to better find itself and is helping present a more harmonious profile immediately out of the gate. Skin contact white wine is a passion of mine and one of my favorite styles to explore, this 2023 vintage is definitely a further step down this road of discovery. I hope you all love it as much as I do.$40.00
2024 Breezy Slope Petillant Naturel Rouge – 100% Pinot Noir
The primary and most obvious product of the 2024 freeze damage. When I discovered that the Malbec at Lewis Peak was completely frozen out in 2024, and wouldn’t be providing any crop, I decided that my Pinot Noir block at Breezy Slope was my best option for making a Pet Nat Rouge in the vintage. I have typically handled the Pinot from Breezy with little or no skin contact, and I have always loved the results, so this was a bit of a leap of faith. The grapes were foot crushed, macerated for a week and then pressed off into old French oak barrels to ferment. As with all pet nats, we bottled the wine when it was about 90% of the way through primary fermentation in order to catch the CO2 from the last 10% in bottle. The result is this gleaming ruby of a natural sparkling wine. While I maintain that Lewis Peak is the best Pet Nat vineyard in Eastern Washington, Breezy is no slouch as a stand in. Vibrant, focused, serious enough for a nice meal, fun enough for plastic cups at the park, this is one of our finest sparkling wines yet. It's so good, I might just have to make two red pet nats in 2025.
2024 Walla Walla Carbonic Red Wine - 68% Dolcetto, 32% Pinot Noir
The other primary casualty of the freeze was my Dolcetto at Dwelley Vineyard. In total, we only received .68 tons off of 2 full acres (as opposed to 7-8 tons in a normal vintage). But, much like the Pet Nat Rouge, the Pinot from Breezy ended up being our saving grace. Picked on the same day, the Dolcetto and the Pinot Noir were transferred together, whole bunch, into a tank and covered with CO2 for carbonic maceration. For two weeks we watched and smelled and made sure the CO2 was topped up as fermentation began. When I felt that the wine was ready, we unsealed the tank, let it air out a bit, then jumped in and foot tread all of the whole bunches to release as much of the juice as possible. The wine then spent another three days on the skins before being pressed to old barrels to finish fermenting. If necessity is indeed the mother of invention, I couldn’t have asked for a kindlier matron than the freeze. As much as the limited yields were painful, I was forced to further stretch my ideas and to break one of Devium’s core tenants: 100% single vineyard wine. Here we have a blend of two vineyards, both in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, and the sum of the parts is definitely an improvement over either raw ingredient. The Dolcetto brings the playfulness that last year’s vintage had in spades, while the Pinot introduces a bit more verve and thrust. I could drink this wine every day.
Thank you all so much for visiting my site and happy spring!
Keith