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Budbreak unfurls the 2021 season | 2018 McDougall Vineyard Pinot scores 96 points!

March 11, 2021 15:21

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Budbreak unfurls the 2021 season with hope and optimism

We love this time of year, when Spring is starting to peek out, bringing a regrowth and renewal all around us. It gives us hope and optimism as we look ahead to what's to come this year. Seeing our tiny grapevine buds go from little fuzzy q-tips to baby leaves makes us smile with a little skip of excitement. We started seeing the vines wake up this week, which is fairly on schedule for our "typical" mid-March budbreak. The picture above is from our Emerald Ridge Pinot vineyard on Tuesday afternoon. Only a few of the vines have begun to burst forth with their tiny buds, and with cool weather and some much-needed rain this week, the start should continue to be slow and steady. Now that the buds are beginning to open, Steve and his crew are preparing to leap into action overnight to protect them from freezing temperatures. All their frost protection sprinkler systems are being checked and flushed, and fans that move the inversion layer are being oiled and tested before they're needed.

Join us in a toast to the kick-off of our 2021 season. Here's to a year of beautiful weather, a little (lot) more rain before May, no fires, and health and happiness all around!

This just in... 96 points for our
2018 McDougall Vineyard Pinot Noir

You're the first to hear it—we just received the news from Wine Enthusiast yesterday that our 2018 McDougall Vineyard Pinot Noir will be receiving 96 points in their June/July issue! Get your supply now before the magazine comes out and everyone else finds out about our Sonoma Coast star.

We've been making wine from this vineyard near Annapolis since the 2001 vintage. Warren Dutton went to high school with Barb McDougall, and when he went to visit Barb and her husband Mac up on their beautiful and rugged property, he spied a perfect hilltop 9-acre field that he told them they should let him plant a vineyard on. The site is a warm spot in this chilly area, with perfect southern exposure and protected from the harshest coastal weather by another ridge. He planted the vineyard in 1998, the same year Steve and Dan partnered to launch Dutton-Goldfield. When Steve saw the site, he thought it was stunning and the fruit would make a great wine. When he brought Dan up to check it out, Dan agreed completely, and so it became one of the first single-vineyard wines in our portfolio.

Barb McDougall has become a welcome, smiling fixture at our annual wine club Taste of Place event, sharing stories from the vineyard. She hosted our DG team for a vineyard visit in 2019, greeting us with her delicious home made apple cake, which was a most welcome settling to our bellies after the curvy coastal drive! You can get the recipe for her apple cake on our website.

The 2018 vintage is particularly intense, leading with robust aromas of Bing cherry, black raspberry, and red beets, with a hint of savory bay. There’s a pretty whiff of dried lavender, along with crushed granite, providing additional complexity to the nose. The mouth is equally bold, with high-toned cherry, pomegranate, and cranberry fruit framed by cigar box spice and black tea notes. The texture is supple but firm, and gains breadth and softness with time in the glass. An assertive finish of cherry, Ceylon tea, and minerality confirm this will be a wine that goes the distance.

2018 McDougall Vineyard Pinot Noir
$68

Last Call on another last vintage:
2018 Green Valley Vineyard Gewürztraminer

Looking for something that will go great with that slightly spicy Asian carry-out dinner? We are down to our last 30 cases of our 2018 Green Valley Vineyard Gewürztraminer, and this is our last vintage of this wine, so stock up while you can. We love its aromatherapy nature—the feeling that you're walking through a garden of spring flowers just makes us happy! Connoisseur's Guide noted: "Wonderfully aromatic and exceptionally keen in varietal focus, the latest from DG is a firmly balanced, dry-finished Gewurztraminer that smacks of rose petals and ginger and exhibits a marvelous sense of finesse evident at every turn."