Burlington, WA 7/29/2024
Garden Path Fermentation is thrilled to announce the release of our first wine in two years: 2022 Skagit County Chardonnay. While most of our production has historically involved beer and cider, Garden Path’s wine program extends back to 2018 and remains very close to our hearts.
Our wine program follows the same ethos as our other fermented products: using only locally sourced ingredients, native yeast, and minimal intervention with fermentation. Local sourcing is, frankly, our biggest challenge with winemaking. While Washington is a fantastic state in which to grow wine grapes, the Puget Sound AVA–with cooler summers and early rain–has proven to be much more challenging than other regions. This is why we don’t necessarily release a wine every year. Sometimes harvest just doesn’t work out as planned.
2022 was bountiful, however. Summer was warm and the rain mostly held off until later in October, so we were able to source a multitude of wine grapes. This particular batch was made from 2000 pounds of Chardonnay grown by our friend Chuck Jackson at Skagit Crest in Sedro-Woolley, and was picked October 24, 2022, right as the season swung from warm late summer days to fall storms and overnight frost. The majority of the fruit was pressed, whole cluster, with a portion of it being destemmed, crushed, and allowed to macerate for seven days before fermenting in neutral French oak barrels for seven months on lees. It was bottled June 1, 2023 without any additional filtration, finings, or sulfur.
Immediately, this wine presents somewhat tight and flinty. As it opens up in the glass, we pick up aromatic notes of honeydew melon (both the flesh and rind), eucalyptus, menthol, and sage. Candied lemon peel and bright, soft acids follow on the palate. The finish is mineral and crisp.
While it’s under a cap closure, this wine is only very lightly effervescent. We do recommend enjoying it fresh, chilled, and immediately. Pairs well with breakfast, lunch, or dinner!
Skagit County Chardonnay is available in bottles and by the glass in the Garden Path Fermentation tasting room, The Great Northern Bottle Shop & Lounge, and some select on-premise accounts in Washington, and can also be purchased at our online shop.
Art by Cass Graybeal Brown. Layout/design is by Paul Marko. Photo by Chris Carley.
About Garden Path Fermentation
Located in the beautiful Skagit Valley in Northwest Washington, with its uniquely fertile soils and cool, temperate climate, Garden Path Fermentation is one of very few producers in the world that’s able to make beer, wine, cider, and mead, all using ingredients sourced from our own backyard, and may be the only one to do so using only native yeast fermentation.
Our production process draws on old-world brewing and winemaking techniques from a variety of traditions, which we reinterpret and adapt to take advantage of our abundant local resources, including Skagit-grown and locally-malted grain, Skagit-grown fruit, much of which we tend to ourselves, locally-cultivated honey, and organic hops from our friends’ nearby farm. Fermentation takes places in oak barrels of varying sizes, including a large, open-top foudre, and each unique batch is hand-blended to taste and is a singular expression of time and place that we can never recreate.
A garden path is a beautiful way to get somewhere you may not have expected to go. Our products–the results of careful selection, blending, aging and curation–will take you on what may be an unanticipated journey that we hope you enjoy!
Visit gardenpathwa.com for more information or follow us on Instagram and Facebook @gardenpathwa.
Please let us know if you are interested in republishing this release, require any additional materials or have any questions.