Let's talk fine wine for a minute here... and why our wine is worth the price tag, and then some.
Ali recently spoke on a panel with winemakers who are in charge of wineries that produce 1 million cases of wine. Within the panel discussion, these winemakers spoke about how "trunks of vines and rocks sometimes damage their picking machines and presses at harvest". Yes, Ali shook her head and bit her lip, not to agree with the agony this caused the winemakers, she bit her lip because this is not how we treat our vineyards and grapes. Those vineyards of the big wineries receive very little human interaction and TLC.
Our vineyards are tended by real people, checked-on, tasted, worried about, breathed-in more than we can keep count of by Eric, Katy and Ali plus our famers who shephard our vines daily.
In 2018, our Sauvignon Blanc was grown in three individual family-owned vineyards. Each vineyards about an hour drive from one another. We are very particular about the quality of the dirt, the vines and the loving care of the family farmers. Once the 2018 Sauvignon Blanc reached ideal ripening, we worked with vineyard crews (mostly immigrants and mostly women these days too) to hand-pick the beautiful grape clusters that are then trucked to the winery.
After the fruit reaches the winery, the grapes are then hand sorted by us to remove anything we don't personally approve of in those picking bins! We mostly pull out leaves, at times a few clusters of botrytis and an occasional lizard!
After sorting, the grapes are gravity fed into our press, a machine that gently presses the grapes to squeeze the nectar out of each tiny grape. From there this fresh grape juice (insert heavenly smell here) is sent to a stainless steel tank for fermentation and aging.
After about five months in tank, we bottle. Yes, a mobile bottling line pulls up to the crush pad and ALL HANDS ON DECK to help with Smith Story bottling. As soon as the wine is inserted, labeled and corked up, a human being places each bottle (this year we counted 19,200 bottles!) into the cardboard wine case, hand tapes the box shut then stacks each case on a stack ...56 cases at a time. This goes on for hours. Bottling is so nerve racking!
SOO... all of this human interaction contributes to the quality of Smith Story wines. We've left out all the planning, sampling, contemplating, celebrating (and/or worrying about) the weather that goes on all year. Is there an easier way to make wine? No. Not to us. This is real winemaking and the pleasure is all ours.
This 2019 Spring Wine Release is so important to our family winery. The three offerings represent wines we are deeply passionate about and can't wait to hear and see all the joy they will soon create in your lives. Thank you for your support, it is never taken for granted. Offer ends on March 15, please help us share Our Story and support wines made by real people.
Details of the 2019 Spring Wine Release Here
- Eric and Ali Story