Vintage 2018

Vintage 2018 finished last week with the harvest of Petit Manseng. While it was a difficult year, I’m very confident about the decisions that were made and the wines that will be bottled. As winegrowers we know that there is no alternative to the hand that we are dealt. For vintage 2018 we had to moderate our expectations. The problem was rain, unending rain, from May through September.

The soil never dried out, so the vine roots continued to pump water into the berries. The sun shined only sporadically, so the leaves were restricted in their ability to ripen the fruit. The constant moisture increased rot pressure and forced early picking.

I’ve never experienced a vintage quite like this one. I have, however, made past mistakes by inappropriately trying to force a style on grapes that they couldn’t handle. This mistake was avoided in 2018 and the wines are being respectfully made.

There will be no single vineyard bottlings. Linden’s single vineyard designation is reserved for wines that express origin and have concentration and longevity. The wines of 2018 will be pretty, quaffable, and finessed, but they won’t have the stuffing for aging nor the personality of place.

There will be no red wine. As we walked the vines and tasted the red winegrapes it became evident that the flavors and freshness would make a fine rosé. The weather would not allow the vines to ripen their crop adequately for red wine production. As winegrowers we all knew that it would be disrespectful to our terroir and to our vines to try to force a wine style in such a vintage. It’s hard to explain, but this was not a difficult decision. Experience comes from past mistakes.

Save the Dates: Free Form December

Winter is down time for us. We take the opportunity to review and reflect on our progress. The last several years we have enjoyed sharing this process with you. For the weekends of December 1 & 2, 8 & 9, and 15 & 16 we will abandon our traditional tastings in favor of a more whimsical, free flow tasting of past, present, and future bottlings.

Look for more details in our next newsletter. These tastings are for wine geeks only.

Linden Vineyards / Learn More / Latest at Linden | Update: August 2018