Imagery Estate Winery is owned by the Benziger family who is dedicated to Biodynamic farming practices and has made wine in the Sonoma Valley since 1980. “Dedicated to crafting small quantities of rare wines from uncommon varieties and character rich vineyards, Imagery Estate Winery was born of a thirst for experimentation and willingness to take risks.”The first Imagery wines were introduced in 1985, at a time when Winemaker Joe Benziger's family was forging the fighting varietals category with their Benziger brand. Despite the demands of producing wildly popular value wines, the Benzigers' indefatigable desire to experiment inspired and energized the winemaking team, who were given exceptional blocks of fruit, over which they had complete creative freedom. The best of these wines were bottled to become the Imagery series.
For these handcrafted, limited-production wines, Joe Benziger wanted labels as evocative as the winemaking. He fortuitously met a local artist named Bob Nugent, whom he commissioned to create an original work of art. Nugent's inventive triptych Chardonnay label was the beginning of the Imagery artist series. During the last 20 years, Nugent has served as curator of the Imagery art collection, commissioning hundreds of international artists to design one-of-a-kind artwork for Imagery labels.
Aromas: peach, apricot, honeysuckle, citrus
Body: medium
Color: yellow
From their website: Vintage: A dry winter led to a fairly early bud break in 2007. Overall the growing season was evenly paced with a just a few heat spikes in the early summer. Warm August weather started harvest early, but then a cool September slowed things quite a bit and grapes hung on the vines another few weeks. Thi
s cool period helped to develop complexity in flavors while keeping sugars under control. 2007 was one of the longest harvests Sonoma County has seen in recent years, spanning almost three months from start to finish. This vintage was certainly smaller in quantity than 2006, but in many cases the lower yields meant more concentrated flavors.Vinification: We whole berry press and use only the free run juice to preserve the wine's beautiful delicacy. Cold fermentation in stainless steel tank maintains the delicate flavors during fermentation. In this vintage, 15% of our Viognier went through barrel fermentation in French oak to add body and mouthfeel to the final blend. The wine was bottled in February of 2008. 664 cases
Eat with: pastis scented steamed mussels, garlic, leeks, herbs, grilled bread
Website: www.imagerywinery.com
Check out Imagery Estate Winery labels at http://www.imagerywinery.com/labels.html
