Yes, the cat is out of the bag, so to speak. I am making a white wine. The reasons are many, but the strongest one may be simply that my middle name is, in fact, White.

Since coming to the Rogue Valley I’ve made Chardonnay, Pinot gris, Pinot blanc, Viognier, Roussanne, Marsanne and even a little Grenache blanc, but always for wineries and labels other than my own. Settling on a style for my own white, I started with Viognier, which I feel has demonstrated a real affinity for the dry, sunny growing conditions here, and supplemented it with a bit over 20% Marsanne, which is a relative newcomer to the region.

The Viognier is from Gold Vineyard in Talent, where Randy Gold has been reliably growing the Malbec and Cabernet franc for Velocity since 2002. Having nibbled some grapes the previous fall, and having tasted some of Trium Winery’s Viognier bottlings from the site, I felt confident that the moderate elevation and easterly aspect, combined with Randy’s skillful farming, could yield the kind of fruit I was looking for. The 2009 vintage did not disappoint me; we were able to bring the fruit in at a civilized 23.0 Brix, with plenty of tropical and stone fruit flavors, sufficient natural acidity, and the kind of balance I am looking for when trying to produce a moderate-alcohol wine.

We harvested the Marsanne on the same day from Crater View Vineyard over by Jacksonville, and went ahead and pressed the fruit from both vineyards together into one tank. I just closed my eyes and trusted that the blend would work. As I had hoped, the Marsanne brings some additional roundness to the wine, and a pleasant melon character. I had expected the Marsanne would also provide some additional acidity, since my experience with the grape from the previous vintage was that it held onto a nice low pH well into maturity, but for this year it wasn’t to be, and I had to be satisfied with the natural acidity of the Viognier.

My goal with the wine is to bottle it unfiltered, and to give it plenty of lees contact for mouthfeel, complexity, and stability. So right now it is moving slowly through malolactic fermentation in barrel, has yet to be given any SO2 (even at crush I avoided SO2) and is, as the picture suggests, in 100% two and three-year old French oak barrels. I bought the barrels from Far Niente winery in Napa, where they were used to make a three-year barrel aged late harvest Sauvignon blanc called Dolce, which explains the filigreed decoration on the barrel heads. I am just happy to have some clean, fairly neutral barrels to age my new project in.

Now come the two toughest questions. What should I call it, and how much should I make next year?