Wavy Wines - 'NRG' - Pétnat of Chenin Blanc, Muscat - California, USA - 2023

Satellite's Hot Take

A wine filled with ENERGY! So delightful and electrified.

Notes from the Winery/Importer

Notes: Chenin Blanc and Muscat were hand harvested and macerated for 2 days on their skins before being pressed and fermented in stainless steel tanks. 100% destemmed Muscat fermented on the skins for 13 days in an open top stainless-steel tank. Once fermentation was almost complete wine was drained of its free run juice. Chenin Blanc was direct-pressed and blended with Muscat midway through fermentation. Wine was racked and a touch still-sweet fermenting Chardonnay juice was added before bottling in October 2023. Fermentation finished in bottle. Native fermentation, no SO2 added. ~ ~ ~ Grapes: Chenin Blanc, Muscat and Chardonnay Vineyards: Wilson Vineyard Chenin Blanc, Luchsinger Vineyard Muscat and Mason Vineyard Chardonnay Alcohol: 11.53%

Notes on the Producer

Wavy Wines started as a friendly conversation between Eliot Kessel and Jude Zasadzki while celebrating Eliot’s daughters birthday in 2019. We were drinking natural wines from all over the world trying to fathom how we could start a project that begins to resemble these styles of ‘Vin de Soif’. Easy summer wines was top priority. After many conversations about where we should start, we came across an affordable source of Pinot Gris from an organic vineyard in Chico, California. It was pretty set in stone we were going to make a skin contact/ramato style of wine. Coupled with a little bit of Chardonnay from Scribe Estate Vineyard we were in business. With finances being tight we decided to take a chance on making a Piquette from the same grapes. The process to which we got there really marked a pivotal moment in Wavy. We will always recycle our grapes, and that will always change with whatever we source for that year. Our wine is called "LS GRIS", and it’s a 13 day skin contact wine that was co-fermented together in stainless steel vats. It consists of 80% Pinot Gris and 20% Chardonnay. After the 13 days we drained the tanks and racked the wine into neutral oak and stainless steel barrels. After a few months of settling we bottled unfined, unfiltered and with no added SO2. The Piquette is named "Calfornia Wine Cooler" and ode to the lower ABV drinks of yesteryear but fully updated and not terrible. After we drained the tanks of free run juice for LS GRIS, we added water on top of the Pinot Gris/Chardonnay solids. We let the co-fermenation continue for a few more days and pressed the grapes. Which extracted a bit more tannin and acid to make the Piquette extremely lively and energetic.