Margins Concrete Egg Fermented Chenin Blanc 2023

This 100% Chenin Blanc was indeed fermented in a concrete egg. The winemaker is very excited about the egg, as they are prohibitively expensive but she got her hands on one and decided to make Chenin Blanc as its inaugural "egg-speriment." Egg-shaped vessels are beloved for aging wine because of their innate ability to suspend the lees/sediment in the liquid throughout the year, effectively stirring the wine as the earth turns, without manually having to do any of the work.

The resulting wine has a complex flavor profile with notes of white peach, pineapple, white flowers, honey, baked apple, stonefruit and beeswax, and bright aromas of ginger and lemongrass, with the texture of minerals and juicy passionfruit. Only 72 cases produced!

The fruit was destemmed then soaked on skins overnight. Pressed then fermented and aged in aforementioned egg for 5.5 months, then moved to neutral barrels for a month to finish clarifying by gravity. Native fermentation, no fining, no filtration, no other modifications or additions except 35 ppm of sulfur dioxide the week before bottling.

Margins Wine produces low-intervention wines using grapes from underrepresented regions, vineyards, and varietals, and is part of the growing movement in California to make wines from organically farmed vineyards using little to no additives during the winemaking process, thereby showcasing the vineyards the grapes came from.

Much like people living on the ‘margins of society,’ vineyards can be outcasts too. Most consumers of wine are only familiar with a handful of grapegrowing regions and types of wine. Margins draws attention to vineyards and varietals throughout northern and central California that find themselves on the margins without the recognition they deserve.

Margins Wine is a small winemaking project of Megan Bell, a winemaker living and working in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Prior to settling on the central coast of California, Megan received her BS in Viticulture and Enology from UC Davis and apprenticed in wineries and vineyards in Napa, the Livermore Valley, the Willamette Valley, Central Otago (NZ), and the Loire Valley (France).