Private Reserve……Zwiegelt?
We have a couple of Private Reserve wines on our wine list. What makes them Private Reserve?
Hand-bottling.
We normally use a bottling machine; however that process does oxygenate the wine a little, resulting in bottle shock. (A temporary condition of the wine occurring after bottling or during transport; it will return back to normal after it has time to rest in the bottle.)
When we bottle the wines by hand, it hardly suffers any bottle shock at all, resulting in a smoother wine. We have selected our two very best wines to be processed this way- the Washington Cabernet Sauvignon and the Argentine Malbec. Those of you that know and love this wine know why we do it. It makes an already amazing wine better. Why don’t we process every wine this way? It’s ridiculously time consuming; but for the Washington Cabernet and Argentine Malbec, it’s a labor of love.
Recently we bottled the Austrian Zwiegelt this way because we needed it for an event. We needed it to be ready for pouring quickly; therefore hand-bottling was our solution. The Zwiegelt, like the Cabernet and Malbec, is a dry, full-bodied red wine. It’s oaky and a little spicy. It’s always been a favorite among the staff at the winery. We absolutely love this batch because it’s so smooth.
Those that love the Zwiegelt, have you tried the current batch? You guys should come in and try it while we have it. We would love your feedback- Should we keep bottling it this way?
