2009 Qupé Bien Nacido Cuvée

This wine is 50% viognier and 50% chardonnay from grapes grown primarily at Bien Nacido Vineyard. 2009 was generally a cool vintage but we had an untimely heat wave at the end of August that went into early September. Our viognier at the Ibarra-Young Vineyard that we usually keep separate as a single vineyard wine ripened during this heat wave, coming in at too high a sugar. On its own the wine would have been out of balance and too high in alcohol but it was a perfect component for this wine. The style of this wine is to take advantage of the exotic floral and peach aromas of overripe viognier (usually picked right around 25.5° brix) and balance it with chardonnay pickedat the low end of ripeness (around 21.5°-22.0° brix). The chardonnay balances the alcohol (this one weighs in at 13.9%) and adds mouth watering acidity. This is a wine to drink young, a summer wine.