Nouveau, or “new” wines, are the first release within the season of harvest.
Most red wines are typically aged for months or even years, whereas a Nouveau is released after only a few weeks.
While some regard nouveau wines as little more than a marketing gimmick, I find there’s great transparency in them: without the aid of oak or aging, you’re presented with the pureness and quality of the fruit honoring the recent growing season.
This wine was produced by a winemaking method called carbonic maceration. While typical winemaking involves crushing the grapes prior to fermentation, with carbonic maceration, whole clusters of berries are added to the fermentation tank where the weight of the fruit literally crushes the fruit itself toward the bottom of the tank, berries at the top begin to ferment within their own skin.
The result is a wine that is big in fruit flavors, with relatively low tannin.
Tasting Notes
2018 Dragonfly Nouveau from Dancing Dragonfly Winery (St Croix Falls, WI) presents a brilliant ruby color in the glass, decadent macerated blackberries, juicy black cherries
This wine is now sold out at Dancing Dragonfly Winery, but keep an eye out for more nouveau wines again in November!
This wine was provided to me as a sample by Dancing Dragonfly Winery, at my request.
