Fulldraw Vineyard

We picked both whites in order to preserve and complement the great structure, acidity and freshness we retain from the vines and limestone soil on our vineyard. Label - Connor grew up going to Colorado to visit family. He cultivated a love of the river and fly fishing, learning from a very talented man, rod and fly maker, Roy Palm. The first time Connor took Rebecca to Colorado, Roy taught Rebecca how to fly fish and she immediately fell in love with it. One of our favorite places to be is drifting along in a boat, drinking in the crisp mountain air. This is a painting of a brown trout side done by a Montana artist, AD Maddox.

At Fulldraw, we meticulously pick, process, and ferment each varietal separately. By doing so, this allows us to blend an impeccably balanced wine among all three varietals each contributing something unique and special to the resulting blend. We are always surprised at how easily this blend comes together. This wine is a great representation of what the site contributes to all the varietals in one bottle—intense aromatics, bright lengthy finish, and finessed tannins. Drawing from our love of cooking, the cleaver on the label currently resides in the knife block in our kitchen and gets put to work on a regular basis. It was custom made for us from a small artisan cutler in Georgia, Bloodroot Blades, which we randomly stumbled across. With its striking patina we thought it would look great on a label. After drinking a glass, or a few, of this wine, I slammed the cleaver into a chopping block. Rebecca yelled at me to not touch it and grabbed her camera resulting in the label!

Our site poses many challenges to growing vines - especially for our Syrah. Just when we think set looks good, strong winds attack the hilltop vines and shatter the clusters bringing our total tonnage to less than two tons per acre. However, the resulting fruit is power packed with concentrated flavor, inky color, and an integrated chalky tannic structure. Canopy management is crucial to developing flavor and ripening our Mourvedre since the vines don't like to grow. The clusters are treated with the same care and attention as our Grenache. The fruit adds earthy complexity to the pallet while heightening aromatics. Using 85 percent new oak from French cooperages, we know the intensity of the destemmed fruit in this wine can handle the oak influence and greatly benefits from it. Honey Bunny began when my wife Rebecca and I were walking through a small town in Colorado. As we were hustling through the snow after a day on the mountain, we passed an art gallery that had a painting similar to Honey Bunny sitting on the sidewalk. I have had a passion for the history of war, especially WWII, since a kid speaking to my grandfathers about their experiences. I exclaimed to her, "How awesome would this be on a wine label?!" We ended up commissioning Honey Bunny from the California artist, Michael Bryan - an 8'x4' piece painted on aluminum. We were able to add small details which spoke to our family and our passions. This piece initiated our decision to collect art for each of our labels. https://www.michaelbryan.com

Grenache is an easy varietal to grow however it requires a lot of care and attention. The large clusters are hand manicured at least twice per growing season in order to make sure the fruit is concentrated in flavor and texture. The canopy is carefully managed to encourage color and tannin accumulation. In order to show the beauty, balance, and purity of fruit that our site has to offer, the fruit is largely destemmed and fermented in stainless, then aged in neutral barrels to limit oak influence. The resulting wine is bright and balanced with strong structure. Hard Point started as a bronze sculpture we found on a surprise birthday trip for Rebecca to Bozeman, Montana. Wandering through a small gallery, our friends pointed out it looked nearly identical to our German Shorthair Pointer dog, Yadi. It was a pretty easy decision for us once we laid eyes on that beautiful piece that we wanted to incorporate it into one of our wine labels. Rebecca then carved and created a print out of the statue to come up with this label.