2020 Contact High, Skin-Fermented White Wine, Sierra Foothills

A tokin' pokin' skin-fermented white from California's coolest vineyards .

WARNING: Exposure may lead to good times.

A tokin’, pokin’ Sierra Foothills clusterfuck of nine southern French varieties, Contact High is the orange wine you’re craving for the summer. We melded Viognier, Chardonnay, Picpoul, Marsanne, Grenache Blanc, Grenache, (gasps for breath), Mourvedre, Bourboulenc, and Counoise from vineyards like Ellen Ridge, Camino Alto, Fenaughty, Shake Ridge Ranch, Barsotti, David Girard, Sierra de Montserrat, and Clos du Lac to pull this wine off. It wasn’t easy.

See for a second, we didn’t think we’d get to make an orange wine this year. The fruit we originally planned to pick went up in smoke (and NOT the good kind), so we scrambled to get as much pristine fruit as we possibly could and thankfully ended up with the French inhale of orange wines.

Partial whole-cluster fermented, foot stomped, and 7 days of skin contact with an open-top? You know we’re here for all that good shit. To make an “orange wine,” we take white grapes, stomp ‘em up, and let the juice sit on the skins like we do when making red wine. This technique imparts an orange hue to the wine and a new strain of texture and flavor.

Right off the bat, you’ll notice the beautiful golden haze in the glass. Inhale bright and vibrant notes of golden apple, apricot, and lemon zest. Exhale those bad vibes. We’re celebrating flower big time and, in this case, we’re talkin’ honeysuckle for daysssss. Get ready to hop on the pineapple express with some lovely fresh vegetal elements of fennel frond with a mild puff of ground white pepper. Contact High has body -ody -ody with a creamy finish, in a lemon zest panna cotta and pear tart kinda way.

Did you know that wine contains terpenes? Well...all plants, flowers, vegetables, and fruits contain varying amounts, proportions, and types of terpenes. In wine, they are responsible for fruity, floral, and herbal notes. Contact High is abundant with Citronellol, the citrus-y aroma common in white wines, and Myrcene, the terpene found in mangos. Apart from tons of special qualities, Myrcene interacts with your body in a special way.

And no, before you ask, there’s no weed in this wine. Just good juice.

420 cases rolled. Don’t blaze through ‘em too quick.

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 We blazed through ‘em all.