Limited Releases. Big Ideas.
We at CAST Wines have had some extra time during the covid shuts-downs and our creative juices (literally) went wild. We used the time to explore new grape varietals and new forms of winemaking, the things you always wished you had the time to do. The result originally was: four totally new wines, and we’ve just added a fifth! These are completely out of the box for us – for the curious and adventurous among you!
THE FIFTH RELEASE – 2021
Rosé of Invocation is our 5th CAST Creative Lab wine. This wine was made from the saignée of our Invocation, American blend: 70% estate zin, 15% Watson old vine zin, 6% estate petite sirah. See what’s behind the label inspiration here.
Vintage Description:
2020 was a warm vintage with very low rainfall during the winter and a warmer than average spring. This led to an earlier bud-break. The warm weather continued through the growing season and accelerated the harvest by almost 3 weeks. The lack of rain led to a very low yield in the vineyard which helped create a nice intensity in each of the wines.
Tasting Notes:
Strawberries and cream, toasted almond, lemon verbena, meyer lemon zest, high toned cherry, graham cracker-butter crust. Fresh picked strawberry on the palate with lemon curd notes and balanced finish with lingering acidity.
3.18 pH
6.5 Ta
13.58 alc
1.9 rs (g/l)
140 cases
THE SECOND RELEASE – SOLD OUT
Please view our current re-lease of this wine here. “Let’s Party”is a radiant new wine many of you loved. This wine was our first take on a “pétillant naturel” or “Pét-Nat” of Pinot Noir. “Let’s Party” was crafted by hand in an ancient sparkling wine process resulting in this feisty, young, fruit forward, low tannin, playful way of revisiting the past. Full cluster fermentation. Cherry notes on the palette. Orange blossom, Indian baking spices, high-tone cherry, dusty tannins on the finish.
“Let’s Party” 2020 Pét Nat Pinot Noir production notes. First, the Saignee! While crafting our popular and delicious Pinot Noir, we typically “bleed off” just a little bit of the juice from the tank of fermenting must. This leaves a higher skin-to-juice ratio for the main tank during fermentation, giving us the desired concentration and richness we seek in that wine. The French call thissaignee, literally translated as “to bleed”, and it leaves us with a rose colored bi-product wine, typically just used for “topping.”
The second step we then took was to keep this juice separate while it continued to ferment, and then, using an ancient process called the Méthode Ancestral, we bottled the wine while it was still fermenting, thus trapping in CO2, producing bubbles.
The last step is to riddle the sediment from the native yeast to the neck of the bottle, freeze it and disgorge the ice “plug”. All of this is done by hand, so very time consuming and labor intensive. But the result, a delicious Pétillant Naturel of Pinot Noir (frequently referred to as a “Pét Nat”) is worth it. If we hadn’t already committed these bottles, we probably would have just kept them for ourselves!
pick date-9/11/2020
34 case production
3.40 PH
12% alcohol
100% neutral Oak
THE THIRD RELEASE – SOLD OUT
This wine is now available as a re-release here.
“Don’t judge me” is CAST’s White Zinfandel completely unexpected, but serious take, on white Zinfandel- almost clear, mineral, dry, high acid, very little color, very subtle. This wine could be described as androgynous, a puzzle, conservative in appearance but completely unexpected in taste. This wine is likely to “under promise” and “over deliver.”
Uniquely an American attribution, Zinfandel has its history being a bit low-brow, overly accessible, in your face, sweet, jammy, not the varietal of typical wine enthusiasts. This wine has a completely different profile. The nose of this wine starts with bright cherry pie filling and delicious all-butter pie crust aromas. Bright boysenberry notes and warm baking spices like all-spice, clove and a black cardamom linger on the nose. The palate is surprisingly juicy and lush with big, full tannins, fruit tones of fresh picked raspberries and cherry cordial.
These grapes were picked at 4am to ensure stable sugars as we were going for a dry wine. Within a couple hours the grapes are loaded into our press where went through a 2 hour press cycle slowly extracting the juice with minimal color. Fermented in stainless steel for 5 months.
100% Zinfandel
Harvest date: September 1, 2020
Stainless steel
5 Months
30 cases
whole-cluster pressed (not full cluster)
THE SECOND RELEASE – SOLD OUT
Please view our current re-lease of this wine here. “Let’s Party”is a radiant new wine many of you loved. This wine was our first take on a “pétillant naturel” or “Pét-Nat” of Pinot Noir. “Let’s Party” was crafted by hand in an ancient sparkling wine process resulting in this feisty, young, fruit forward, low tannin, playful way of revisiting the past. Full cluster fermentation. Cherry notes on the palette. Orange blossom, Indian baking spices, high-tone cherry, dusty tannins on the finish.
“Let’s Party” 2020 Pét Nat Pinot Noir production notes. First, the Saignee! While crafting our popular and delicious Pinot Noir, we typically “bleed off” just a little bit of the juice from the tank of fermenting must. This leaves a higher skin-to-juice ratio for the main tank during fermentation, giving us the desired concentration and richness we seek in that wine. The French call thissaignee, literally translated as “to bleed”, and it leaves us with a rose colored bi-product wine, typically just used for “topping.”
The second step we then took was to keep this juice separate while it continued to ferment, and then, using an ancient process called the Méthode Ancestral, we bottled the wine while it was still fermenting, thus trapping in CO2, producing bubbles.
The last step is to riddle the sediment from the native yeast to the neck of the bottle, freeze it and disgorge the ice “plug”. All of this is done by hand, so very time consuming and labor intensive. But the result, a delicious Pétillant Naturel of Pinot Noir (frequently referred to as a “Pét Nat”) is worth it. If we hadn’t already committed these bottles, we probably would have just kept them for ourselves!
pick date-9/11/2020
34 case production
3.40 PH
12% alcohol
100% neutral Oak
FIRST RELEASE – JUST A FEW LEFT
First up was a wine we call “go your way”, our take on a Grenache Nouveau. It’s sourced from a small vineyard and made in a completely unique manner to produce a dynamite example of a fresh and zesty red wine preferably served chilled. The vineyard, just two acres, is biodynamically farmed from vines supplied by legendary grower Randall Grahm, the original “Rhone Ranger.” We brought the fruit in and made the wine using the carbonic maceration process whereby the entire grape cluster is put into a stainless tank and sealed under a blanket of carbon dioxide. There, a unique type of enzymatic fermentation begins within the grapes themselves. This extracts delicate fruit and floral aromatics and flavors. The tank is opened and treaded by foot every day as native yeasts finish the job. The wine is bottled early with just a little of the natural CO2 and acidity to make it literally mouthwatering! This process captured the earthy quality and funkiness of an old world Grenache, but is produced in a new way that promotes the fresh and bright notes of the fruit – a truly perfect blend of old and new world winemaking.
pick date-9/11/2020
48 case production
3.40 PH
11.53% alcohol
100% neutral Oak