Maybach Materium 2017

Description

From the Winemakers’ Website: 2017 was a vintage defined by extremes: huge rainfall in the winter and early spring, and a series of heat waves beginning in May. The most severe heat wave took place over Labor Day weekend. Winemakers watched as brix levels spiked unusually early the first week in September, and many people unfortunately picked. We decided to wait and watch. Physiologically, the fruit had a ways to go to be fully mature and ready to make a world-class wine. Having seen brix levels spike before, we had the foresight to wait out the heat wave. The brix in the Weitz fruit did indeed rise, but 10 days later, the heat subsided and so did the brix levels, returning to more seasonally appropriate numbers. And here we are today with the finished wine and what feels like another classic vintage of Materium. This wine possesses all the hallmarks of the bottling: the color, the aromatics and the sleek, lush, palate-coating black-fruit. The wine has a decadent balance of fruit and spice notes, with the signature acid architecture to hold everything in place and to draw out a long, ethereal finish. Each year we must work with what nature gives us, and given the variables in 2017, this wine stands tall in the pantheon of Maybach Materiums past. —Winemaker, Thomas Brown