To the folks that know me, and for those that don’t, the baseline groundwork of Turtle Run Winery starts in 1988 at Miami University. Professor John Dome had this most intriguing class called “Geography of Wine.” Yeah, we tasted wine here and there, but the basis for the class was in classical grapegrowing, winemaking, wine processes, and the culture of wine. And how in Europe wines were based upon the earth, and unadulterated winemaking.
We have some of the oldest traminette vines in Indiana, and therefore our library of traminette wines is one of the most extensive. In early 2014, I tasted our older vintage traminettes and found something remarkable. They all seemingly aged gracefully, either tasting the same as I remembered them or better.
And that got me thinking. What if we blended cross vintage? Could we make an extraordinarily exceptional traminette if we created a perpetuity tank, meaning we only bottle so much and add fresh traminette each year? Crazy thought, huh? Even crazier was this? We’d be storing wine in the 11% – 12% alcohol zone with natural residual sugar. That’s insane–try keeping wine in a tank that could, and should ferment, but isn’t.
And in all the classical research I’ve done on wine, I know of no one who has ever tried this. Ever. Never.
In February 2015, we introduce to you Traminette Triple Vintage. I recently poured it for one of those “wine know-it-all’s” and he was absolutely shocked at the intensity and complexity of flavors. How the wine was so balanced, so flavorful, so smooth, fruity, complex, and with a staggeringly long finish. And all grown right here in our Indiana vineyard.
At Turtle Run, we will always, always push the edge of winemaking, but not with chemicals or other additives (like liquid oak). Or add sugar or juice at bottling.
Our wine flavors come from the grapes, the barrels, the yeast. All natural, all the time. And pretty well hangover free.
Cheers, Jim