J Vineyards NV Cuvée 20

Elegant and lively, our J Cuvée 20 Brut offers is a classic Russian River Valley sparkling, offering a dance of bubbles across a complex palate that expertly balances appealing fruit notes, rich nuttiness from years spent aging on the lees and a crisp, clean finish. Cuvée 20 opens with notes of baked apple, baked lemon bar, white peach and nectarine, which is given complexity with hints of crème brûlée, toasted chestnut, brioche toast and apple pie spice.

The grapes for this cuvée were hand-harvested into small quarter-ton bins and placed as whole clusters, without destemming, into our French Coquard press for a gentle, low-pressure pressing to minimize the breakdown of grape skins and seeds. Each vineyard lot was fermented and kept separate until blending. Ultimately, our cuvée was assembled and cold-stabilized to remove excess tartrates and then bottled in the spring.

As is customary for Traditional Method sparkling wine production, the secondary fermentation occurred in the bottle. The wine was aged en tirage in our cool cellars for an average of 30 months, developing deeper complexity as the months went by. Bottles were carefully riddled to remove the yeast sediment prior to disgorgement. The wine was then aged on the cork before release.