renaissance vineyard & winery

Renaissance wines are best known for their uncompromising expression of terroir and distinctive style. One of the special characteristics of Renaissance wines is that they make themselves. By 'make themselves' we mean that these wines are treated, to the greatest extent possible, as a natural product of the land from which they spring. From manual picking at harvest, to the careful selection of the grapes on our sorting table, to the gentle movement of the pressed wine from our open-top fermenters to barrel, to manual bottling by gravity, we intend to produce a product that displays the essence, terroir if you will, of our mountain vineyard estate. Given the steep rocky terrain of our vineyard and the extremely low yields per acre (average 1.0-1.2 tons), the fruit produced here is limited in quantity; however, low yields in the vineyard contribute to the high quality and distinctive character of the resulting wine. The typical expression of our terroir can be recognized in the relatively austere, yet concentrated and highly structured style of our red wines, which enables them to live long and gradually open up to a glorious full maturity blossom after decades in the bottle. They tend to be unusually complex in flavor, with pure fruit, a strong spicy side, and a long "minerally" finish.