• 45% Merlot, 45% Petit Manseng, 10% Albariño
• 12.5% ABV
• 9 months neutral French oak
• Rocklands Estate
• 750 ML
• Descriptors: 

Production/Tasting Notes

Día (meaning “Day” in Spanish) is a snapshot of the harvest day September 7th, 2023 at Rocklands and a new addition to our Rocklands “Singular Series,” an effort to capture a singular expression of the Rocklands terroir.  We liked the name in Spanish because of our inspiration from many winemakers and farmers from Spain.

3 varieties: Albariño, Petit Manseng, and Merlot were hand harvested and then chilled overnight in our walk in.  The Albariño was destemmed and macerated on the skins one day before pressing to barrel.  The Merlot and Petit Manseng were destemmed together directly to one of our 850L fermentation eggs.  In our climate, Merlot can have difficulties retaining acidity in the vineyard, while Petit Manseng is quite the opposite and often needs to be blended in order to raise the pH to undergo a stable and healthy fermentation.  While we’re not aware of this blend happening on the regular anywhere else in the world, we thought the two varieties would balance each other out and also with their origins both being Southern France, they might just pair well together.

This blend of white and red grapes macerated for 5 days without any additions, inoculation, or sulfur.  The Merlot and Petit Manseng co-ferment was pressed directly to three 225L barrels.  Midway through fermentation, a small amount (about 10%) of heavy pressed Albariño was added.  

The wine aged in these barrels on its fine lees for 9 months.  In late May, the barrels were racked together to a small steel tank and chilled down for cold stabilization. The wine was bottled without any additions, filtrations, or finings at any point in the process on June 6th, 2024.