Wine of the week: Spottswoode, 2022 Sauvignon Blanc, Napa Valley, Sonoma County

Aron Weinkauf said making sauvignon blanc is a laborious endeavor.

“It’s — for all intent and purposes — 100% barrel (small vessel) fermented,” explained the winemaker and vineyard manager of Napa Valley’s Spottswoode Estate. “It takes a lot of work to monitor and care for that many barrels.”

Weinkauf is behind our wine of the week winner, Spottswoode, 2022 Sauvignon Blanc, Napa Valley (58%), Sonoma County (42%), 13.9%, $45. It’s a gorgeous sauvignon blanc with great complexity and notes of grapefruit, white peach and jalapeño. Vibrant, with a silky texture, it’s impressive.

The winemaker said the style he’s shooting for is classic or quintessential Californian.

“We have ripeness and texture, with great sauvignon blanc aromatics,” the winemaker said, adding that it benefits from barrel and yeast contact. “For me, it’s a nice amalgam of the different global styles of sauvignon blanc.”

The 2022 vintage, Weinkauf said, worked in this bottling’s favor.

“It was a pleasant spring with some very well-timed rains that helped us not feel such extreme effects of the previous years’ droughts,” he said. “It was a warm growing season. ... And it was fortunate that we were picking just before the extremely high heat. The wine has great balance, ripeness and texture.”

Weinkauf, 47, didn’t grow up in the wine industry. He was raised in Reno, Nevada, the son of a custom boot maker and a teacher. He went to college in Rome, Georgia, and while studying abroad in Spain, he was introduced to wine.

“It was great to see wine not just as an alcoholic beverage but wine as part of the culture, regularly on the table as we sat down for meals,” he said.

The allure of wine was enough to inspire Weinkauf to go back to school. He earned a degree in viticulture and enology in 2005 from Fresno State University.

The winemaker said he’s particularly fond of making sauvignon blanc because the varietal can be complex and worthy of aging.

“Sauvignon blanc is very dynamic depending on the regions where it’s grown,” he said. “At Spottswoode, we love the varietal and the wine we make. We’ve been doing it for years and truly enjoy the stylistic balance that we’ve struck.”

Founded in 1982 by Mary Novak, Spottswoode produces about 10,000 cases per year. It focuses on a sauvignon blanc, an estate cabernet sauvignon and a Napa Valley cabernet blend.

The winery’s organic farming practices were set in motion in 1985. Today, Weinkauf maintains them. Environmental preservation, he said, is pivotal.

“As a country, we need to realize that there has been a tremendous cost to farming practices, fertilizer and herbicide use, and we need to make some changes more quickly,” he said. “The paradigm as we’ve known it is changing, and how we work with it must change, too.”

You can reach Wine Writer Peg Melnik at 707-521-5310 or peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pegmelnik.