Vermont-grown Riesling was destemmed/crushed and allowed to sit on skins for 16hrs before pressing. Stainless steel fermentation followed by 6mos neutral barrel aging, with initial 3.5mos battonage
Antecedent
Tasting Notes | Lemon Peel and briny minerality | ABV 11.5%
Variety | 100% Vermont-grown Riesling
The only Vermont-grown Rieslings you'll find - anywhere! We make Antecedent from our 23-year-old Riesling vines that grow at our Meach Cove Vineyard next to Lake Champlain.
Following destemming and a gentle crushing, the grapes for this wine went into a stainless steel tank to ferment. Pressing was performed after an eighty-four day maceration on skins. About eighty percent of the wine was sent to neutral oak to age sur lie with weekly battonage for three and a half months and the other fifth was aged in stainless steel. After seven months, the lots were blended and allowed to come together prior to bottling.
The 2022 Vintage:
This isn't your Uncle's Riesling! This wine is incredibly dry, with a juicy acidity. Nutty, buttery aromas lead to a palate that pops with lemon and a briny minerality. Less than 130 cases made.
Growing Antecedent
The Only Vermont-grown Riesling
Vineyards: Meach Cove Trust
Locations: Shelburne, VT
Winemaking: Grapes for this wine were destemmed, crushed, and allowed to sit on skins for 16 hours to allow for some extraction of tannin, color, and aromatic precursors. Upon completion of fermentation in stainless steel, the wine was racked into neutral oak barrels where it underwent malolactic fermentation, battonage, and sur lie aging.
Vineyard: Our Meach Cove Vineyard is the least sloping of all our sites. Its constant north and south prevailing winds and its close proximity to Lake Champlain provide air movement, frost protection, and rapid drying after rain. Rows are oriented north-south for maximum sunlight and ripening. The underlying soil is deep, stony loam in the Georgia series. It originated in glacial till derived from limestone and calcareous shale.
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Gluten - Free
Cruelty Free
Responsibly Farmed
Vegan
Made with Handpicked Vermont Grapes
Crafted with minimal intervention using sustainable vineyard management practices
IAPETUS Wines
Our team farms over 15 acres of cold hardy grape vines on three vineyard sites in northern Vermont to make natural wine. Named after the ancient ocean that once covered the present day Champlain Valley, where the roots of our grapes now nestle, IAPETUS creates wine that is inexorably tied to the Vermont soil and landscape.
Using the deep historical context of the soil in which our grapes grow as a backbone, IAPETUS makes natural, minimal intervention wines. We trust our grapes to lead us to something wonderful.
We primarily grow cold-hardy hybrid grape varieties that are best suited to our climate and have natural disease resistance
No spraying of unnecessary chemicals
All grapes are hand harvested, and we minimize the use of machinery in the vineyard to reduce soil compaction
Minimal intervention in the growing process
Our vineyards are never irrigated or tilled
Native grasses and wildflowers are allowed to flourish under the vines, naturally improving soil health
We work with sheep in the vineyard several times per year - they mow the grass and provide natural fertilizer
We don’t use sulfur or chemicals to “correct” things in the wine making process, our wines are unfiltered and unfined.