Thoughts:
Hot Pink...
In RSV’s thirty-eight years as winegrape growers and thirty-four vintages as winemakers, twenty-twenty was the most challenging. It should have been a “perfect” year… but it was far from it. Perhaps, despite the challenges, it provided a clearer vision as to the costs of ignoring nature. Hopefully, the examples of climate change-induced fires and record heat have brought us to a tipping point where we start paying attention to the needs of our natural environment and begin to overcompensate for decades of neglect and abuse.
We have been practicing regenerative farming long before there was a name for it. We felt then, as we do now, that it is the responsible way to farm, especially if you are producing a luxury item. We also believe we make better wine when we address the needs of nature, do away with chemicals, focus on soil building, encourage biodiversity with hedgerows, insectaries and animal habitat. All of these practices provide the raw ingredients so nature can do its job more efficiently and effectively to help us grow and craft a better, more elegant wine - and that is ultimately why we do what we do.
The Vin Gris of Pinot Noir is the only wine RSV made in 2020 and we only produced a fraction of normal. Quality and purity is always number one and when we saw that the drought would be a problem, we cut back on which vineyards we would farm to harvest. Then the pandemic hit and we cut back further… and then the fires hit. We only made wine from the grapes that were picked before the fires - just a couple of blocks of Pinot Noir. We refused to pick any more fruit because of the likelihood of smoke taint.
So when you raise a glass of Vin Gris, think about how it is a reflection of what humans can create when they work in harmony with nature and respect the environment that is so important to our economic future, joy, health and well being. We are all stewards of nature and every choice we make has an impact on the planet. There are many books and online articles on the topic but if you can, make some nice snacks, pop a bottle of Vin Gris and sit down with friends and family and watch David Attenborough’s A Life on Our Planet. Then decide on what changes you can make to help heal an ailing earth.