100% Petit Manseng | 13.7% ABV | Loudoun County, Virginia Appellation 

Wine Notes

The Fieldwork Fizz is a small lot of Petit Manseng bottled at the tail end of a one year fermentation and completing fermentation in bottle creating a lightly bubbly, aromatic frizzante wine.

After a very dry stretch of weather in August and accentuated by 100 degree days in early September, the Petit Manseng rapidly ripened and was harvested on September 7th, 2023. Despite clocking in over 24 brix the acidity remained a ripping 2.85 pH, showcasing the beautiful oddity that is Petit Manseng here in the mid-Atlantic.  Because of the high potential for alcohol and the wine undergoing a native fermentation, we decided a few days of skin contact would promote a healthier fermentation.  The juice was then pressed in two rounds directly to tank and fermented on the gross lees. No sulfites or yeasts were employed at any point.

The Petit Manseng then began a long and SLOW fermentation (our longest fermentation of 2023).  Mid-way through the tank fermentation, one barrel of a separate lot Petit Manseng which was macerated for 11 days on the skins was added to the Petit Manseng in tank to continue to promote a healthy fermentation and give a slightly increased textural component to the final wine.

For this small lot, we decided to pull a small lot of wine in early August 2024 from our main Fieldwork tank at the very tail end of this one year fermentation in hopes of it finishing in bottle and creating a sparkling wine.  While normally we harvest and produce sparkling wine with that intention from the beginning of the process, we felt like this would be be a fun experiment despite not being the original “plan” with the wine.  The natural acidic character of Petit Manseng sets up well for both skin contact and sparkling wines (two styles of wine where you want a lot of acid).  Since we had yet to produce a sparkling wine with Petit Manseng, this was a great chance to set aside a small lot.  We decided to call it “Fizz” since it shows a bit more as a Frizzante compared to a full blown sparkling, given that the carbonated a bit less aggressive and pressurized compared to our other sparkling wines at Rocklands.