Slow Wine Guide: Mount Richmond

“Elk Cove Wines are known for their purity of fruit and finesse.”
– National Editor Deborah Parker Wong, Slow Wine Guide USA 2021

Our 2018 Mount Richmond Pinot Noir is featured in the 2021 Slow Wine Guide: A year in the life of the Vineyards and wines of the USA. This guidebook features 285 US wineries that exemplify Slow Wine principles for good, clean and fair wine.

Elk Cove 2018 Mount Richmond Pinot Noir “Brings aromas of ripe cherry, plum, hints of pepper and earthiness, tasting of luscious dark cherry, blackberry, baking spice, ripe figs, with earthiness and silky tannins.”

 

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Slow Wine Guide USA 2021

 

Less than 3% of American wineries were selected for the Slow Wine Guide in 2021. Originally developed in Italy, Slow Wine grew out of the Slow Food movement “a global, grassroots organization, founded in 1989 to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the rise of fast life and combat people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how our food choices affect the world around us.”

The 2021 edition of the USA guide is devoted to the domestic wineries and the wines of California, Oregon and Washington and New York states. Here you’ll find precise guide entries for 285 producers and more than 850 wines all of which celebrate and demonstrate the Slow Food ethos for “good, clean and fair.” Learn more at slowwineusa.com

 

The Slow Food Manifesto for good, clean and fair wine: 1 - Wineries must directly cultivate at least 70% of the grapes used for the production of wines (exceptions are made for some areas that traditionally have a large trade of grapes, such as Madeira, Napa Valley, Southern Spain…). 2 - Wineries must not use fertilizers, herbicides and antibacterial agents deriving from synthetic chemistry. 3 - The use of environmental resources for wine production must be responsible and sustainable. The use of irrigation systems must be limited as much as possible, and aimed at avoiding cases of severe water stress. 4 – Any new company buildings to be built, must respect the landscape. Regarding buildings that already exist, any eventual renovation and their management must take into account environmental sustainability. 5 - Wineries must not use reverse osmosis or physical methods of must concentration. Furthermore, except for sparkling wines or wines that traditionally require it, MCR (Rectified Concentrated Must) or sugar (depending on the country of production) must not be used. The use of shavings is not taken into consideration to flavor wines. 6 - The amount of sulfur in the wine must not exceed the limits indicated in the European Union organic wine certification. 7 - The wines must reflect the terroir of origin. This is the reason we welcome the use of indigenous yeasts as well as scientific research aimed at isolating native yeasts, which can then be replicated and used by the company or by several winemakers of the same area and denomination. 8 - Wines must be free of the major oenological defects, because these tend to make the wines homogeneous and flatten the territorial differences. 9 - It is desirable that the winery actively collaborates with the entire agricultural community in order to enhance the agricultural system of the territorial area where it produces. In this regard, it is absolutely necessary for the winery to maintain a virtuous relationship with its collaborators and employees, encouraging their personal and professional growth, and it is equally necessary for the winery to collaborate and share knowledge with other winemakers in the area, avoiding unfair competition. 10 - The sustainable winemaker encourages biodiversity through practices such as: alternating the vineyard with hedges and wooded areas; soil management that includes grassing and green manure and that excludes, in any case, bare soil, except for short, seasonal periods; protecting pollinating insects and useful fauna by preferably using the insecticides allowed in organic farming, in case such interventions are necessary, but in any case avoiding using them during the flowering of the vine and other herbaceous species present in the vineyard; breeding animals in respect of their well-being and the production of manure on the farm, and the company's production of compost from pruning residues and other organic materials.

 

Download a PDF of the Slow Wine Manifesto here.

2018Mount Richmond Pinot Noir

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