Perfectionism

A quick google search for perfectionism defines it as:

In psychology, perfectionism is a personality trait characterized by “a person's striving for flawlessness and setting excessively high performance standards, accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others' evaluations.”

This defines some of best winemakers. There are so many steps along the way, including all of the interim steps (mostly stringent cleaning practice), that if anything should go wrong- you could face off flavors, secondary fermentation, brett, you name it. Many people love some funk, but I personally believe that striving for purity sets a clean canvas for the true nature of the vintage and terroir to show through. I cant tell you how many winemakers talk about being non interventionist, “shepherding the wines”; that the origin of a wine’s nature comes from the vineyard. This cannot be done without a perfectionist tendency.

I always love when Maggie Harrison comes to town to work with me. I learn so much. You can always count on tasting someone else’s amazing wine at dinner she is hosting. While not shy about ordering a bottle of 2013 Raveneau, she is often almost painfully modest about showing her wines. She was assistant winemaker at Sine Qua Non for 9 years, and worked under the master of perfectionism, Manfred Krankl. I literally would eat off of the floor of his cellar., and I am a germaphob.

On this occasion, we were tasted people on 2 Pinot Noirs, Lillian Syrah and started with Lillian Roussanne. The wines are all truly amazing, but my story today is about the Roussanne she made. The fruit was sourced from a small 1.5 acres of Stolpman Vineyard in Ballard Canyon. Roussanne is quite finicky in growing often very uneven ripening , and it takes great attention. The picking tends to be later in harvest, the Syrah, Grenache are long gone. She explained,” if I went out every week to gather the gold, I would come back with enough to ferment in my boot. “. Instead, she chooses to wait until about 85% of the fruit is ripe, amber skins, and dark brown seeds. She picks and then comes the mania that I wish I could be at the winery to see. This is her description::

“To work with the variation with the greatest level of precision, we slow down the sorting table tenfold and collate the fruit by color; first cluster by cluster and then berry by berry. The lighter, higher acid fruit goes directly to the press for ten to eighteen hours. The challenge is to figure out a way to make a complete and totally gentle extraction of the aromas in the thick-skinned berries and often-present (and welcome) botrytis. To this end, we macerate and ferment this fruit on the skins for three to five days, gently washing the skins with the juice twice a day, just until the fermentation progresses far enough that the aromatics crack open and rise from the fruit. This allows us access to aromas that would never occur were we to go directly to the press and allows us to extract them in a very gentle way. Each of these fractions is barrel fermented and goes through full malo in barrel. The wines remain in barrel, sur lie, for a year before we pull a sample from each the barrels and blend to find a cuvée that comes together with the greatest complexity and beauty. “

The end result, to me, is a perfectly balanced seamless journey through what you would imagine each grape brings. It has the lighter acid liveliness of the greens, the richness of the ambers. It is something you should seek out and you will find that the perfectionism has was worth all of the gentle obsessive chase for unparalleled quality.. Visit : http://www.lillianwinery.com , you will likely be waitlisted, but the best things in life are worth the wait, right?