There have been a number of points over the past few decades when the opportunity arose for a small “project” in the winery. An opportunity for something unique and fun. Inevitably though, the time comes when we look at this small pet project and wonder what to do with it? Legally, for us to sell any wine it must have a label, and a label that accurately describes what the wine is…. unfortunately, printing a small amount of labels is outrageously expensive. We needed an all encompassing label that we could keep on hand, that would allow us to share the fun projects that did not fit into the box, thus was born: the project label. A table wine designation requires no vintage or varietal listed, and requirements for ABV reporting allow for a spread that will cover anything we would dream of producing(very much like the old importer labels used to do).

As we go forward, if there is a stamp on your project label wine, we will share details about the wine here. For our inaugural “project wine” release, we have the label alone, for a wine we bottled half a decade ago and have been wishing we had a way to share it ever since.

project wine release #1:

2017 Goodfellow “Not Pinot” A blend of 65% Cabernet Franc and 35% Pinot Noir.

When Patricia and Richard were first planting Whistling Ridge Vineyard, they planted a little bit of Cabernet Sauvignon to see how it would do, and Patricia put in a few vines of Cabernet Franc in with it. The Cabernet Sauvignon was ungrafted (as was the rest of the vineyard) and went down like a stone when phylloxera hit, but the Cabernet Franc was on rootstock, and managed to escape being ripped out with the rest. There has never been enough for anything close to a full fermentor, but in 2017 we pulled in the fruit anyway, and popped the head out of a barrel for a mini-ferment. With such a very small amount, we debated for a bit with what to do with it, and decided at a point to see how it worked blending with Pinot Noir, a sort of an Oregon-meets-Loire homage to the farm wines of previous times. A tasty enough wine that we bottled it without label, and set it aside to age. The name comes from the first time we found the grapes in the vineyard. Cluster morphology, and even the leaf shape is unique and far outside of the Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Riesling planted up there…. small black grapes ripening on the vine that were clearly “not pinot”.