The release in this Tribe shipment of a Meeker wine named “HONE #1: Sakura” has inspired me to share with our Tribe the great pride and pleasure and, indeed, the great excitement that Molly and I have experienced as Lucas has fully matured into an expert and innovative head winemaker over his 10+ years with our winery.
As Lucas explains on the back label of Hone #1: Sakura, it has been a longstanding tradition at our winery that “every harvest we have at least one ‘experiment’ – a variety we haven’t made, a technique we want to sharpen, or a winemaking idea we haven’t tried before – to reinforce the idea that we’re never done honing our craft.” In that tradition, our Hone #1: Sakura is a new wine blend created by Lucas with the help of Tyler Johnson, who was then our assistant winemaker — and who now is our daughter’s husband! To my knowledge, this wine is not based on any previously established wine blend.
Hone #1: Sakura is a co-fermented blend of 27.5% Viognier, 18.3% Carignane,18.3% Zinfandel, 18.3% Petite Sirah, and 17.6% Grenache. Due to the Viognier (a white grape), the wine is medium bodied and medium red in color. It features a wonderful floral aroma and a juicy taste. Although I have not yet done so, I look forward to experimenting by drinking this wine chilled. In any event, this wine is something quite
new, and I believe that you will like it a lot.
Lucas is, of course, continuing to do a great job making our traditional Meeker “big reds”, such as the 2014 Handprint Merlot that is also part of this Tribe shipment.
Enjoy!