Crinella Wines
2006 Pinot Noir
2006 Sauvignon Blanc
Double Gold Medal!
2005 Sauvignon Blanc
Gold Medal!
2005 Glissando
2 Gold Medals!
2004 Glissando
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Our Wines •
Wine Making •
In the Vineyard
From the Land to the Table
Winemaking at Crinella Vineyards
When we
started to pursue a dream of making our most important
goal was our belief that
wine should reflect the land, rather than the hands that
made it. We believe the time has come for limited-production
Sauvignon Blanc
and Pinot Noir that honor two distinctly different vineyard sites in Sonoma County's
Russian River Valley.
We were
equally certain about the style of
Sauvignon Blanc and
Pinot Noir we wanted to
make. It is an important aspect of our
winemaking to produce wines that take their place gracefully at the table.
Crinella Sauvignon Blanc is crafted from the family's fog-cooled
Marino Vineyard in Santa Rosa.
As one expert points out, "This particular vineyard represents the best of both worlds, with the cultivation of two distinctly different clones
and the specific climatic conditions of this Russian River Valley site."
The grape flavors have a range of possibilities from the citrus notes of the New Zealand style to the warmer, richer flavors of
Napa. Given the nature of this vineyard, we are able to
dance between the two styles and make most interesting and compelling wines.
The result is a
Sauvignon Blanc
filled with elegant fruit and family memories. Sauvignon Blanc was the
favorite wine of our
father, Marino Crinella, for whom the vineyard is
named. We wanted a wine reminiscent
of the Sauvignon Blanc our father had always enjoyed. When we tasted our first Sauvignon Blanc, it was exactly
the wine for which my brother and I had dreamt.
We make a second
wine from Marino Vineyard called Glissando,
a late-harvest Sauvignon Blanc.
We barrel ferment 20 cases of
this wine in neutral cooperage for two years. The result is a style of botrytis wine reminiscent of Sauternes.
Wines made from Russian River
Valley grapes, especially Pinot Noir seem to have have a magic quality that results from the region's longer growing season with warm days and cool
nights that allow flavors to develop slowly and
fully. But there is also great diversity of microclimates and soils in the Russian River Valley, so each wine has the opportunity to reveal its exciting
and unique character.
When at last harvest day
arrives, our grapes are picked by hand before dawn in the coolest
hours and put into small bins to avoid breaking the skins. The crop is whole cluster pressed
rather than crushed. The free run juice is then cold fermented at about 45 degrees in
stainless steel with about 20% going into neutral oak barrels.
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