WTN: 2005 Edmunds St. John Redneck 101

[David M. Bueker]

The 2005s from Steve Edmunds are generally fantastic, and this wine is no exception. Steve seems to have a real nack for creating seamless blends, and the warm herbs, dark fruit and loamy earth elements in this bottling just flow together as if they were rivers running together to meet the sea. There's not a lot of structure to the wine, so I might suggest drinking it a little earlier than some ESJ wines, but I would not be shocked for it to age on its balance for a long time to come. Delicious!

Glad you liked the wine, David. The Redneck was a co-ferment, which, I believe, mitigates strongly in the direction of seamlessness. I bought such a small amount of fruit from Eaglepoint that Casey couldn't quite let me name my own pick date, and from a practical standpoint, I completely understood, but since that's the most important decision I make as a winemaker, I finally had to pass on the grapes as of '07. (Too, I suspect that because Casey had his own ideas about whether things were ripe or not, he may have had trouble pulling the trigger sooner than he would have for his own wine.) Picking later than I wanted to had a big impact on structure (not to mention alcohol), thus the blousy, pillowy side to the wine.

[David M. Bueker]

Thanks for the information Steve. It's fascinating that the vineyard and winemaking choices are shining through that clearly. For what it's worth, that's my definition of natural wine.