The Komes-Garvey family has spent thirty years nurturing our Crossroads Vineyard in Oakville where our proprietary Soliloquy clone of Sauvignon Blanc is planted.
The Soliloquy clone is unique to Flora Springs, certified by UC Davis as distinctive and unlike more common Sauvignon Blanc clones in Napa Valley.
Flora Springs admires the clone for its purity of flavor, and has preserved it in a block that is easily the finest in the Crossroads Vineyard.
Our 2017 Soliloquy is an evolution of this wine, the upshot of vineyard experience and winemaking innovation.
The wine is the result of five years of winemaking trials as we experimented with a variety of blending, fermentation and aging techniques to create the best possible Soliloquy.
The 2017 is unlike anything we have made before: a wine with our Soliloquy Sauvignon Blanc at its core, blended with portions of Chardonnay and Malvasia for an intriguing and thoroughly modern white wine.
With a nod to our history of innovation, Soliloquy is a wine worthy of its portfolio companion, our flagship red wine blend, Trilogy.
Winemaking Techniques
In 2017, we used two kinds of yeast, fermenting and aging the Soliloquy Sauvignon Blanc in large wood oval casks to minimize exposure to oak and preserve the wine’s fresh fruit flavors and bright acidity.
The Chardonnay comes to us from a new vineyard in the south Napa Oak Knoll district. We fermented these small lots in French oak barrels, stirring the lees every two weeks to lend a creamy texture to the wine.
We sourced Malvasia – an aromatic varietal rarely grown in California – from a small vineyard in Russian River Valley. We fermented this lot in stainless steel and aged it in seasoned French oak.
Only 300 cases were made
Tasting Notes
Our 2017 Soliloquy is a complex, multi-layered white wine blend offering bright flavors of grapefruit, lime, fresh apricot, and yellow peach along with distinctive floral notes of jasmine, honeysuckle and white gardenia. The Chardonnay anchors the wine with a soft, round mouthfeel, but this richness is balanced with the crisp acidity, bright flavors and minerality of the Sauvignon Blanc and the uplifting, aromatic tones of the Malvasia. A worthy companion to Trilogy, this is a mouthfilling, rich and layered wine with vivid, forward fruit, a pleasant creamy mid-palate and a long, smooth floral/spicy finish. Learn more about this unique wine.
Note: The infamous wildfires that swept through Napa Valley started on October 8, 2017, just one day after Flora Springs had completed its harvest. Grapes for our 2017 Soliloquy had already been picked and fermented by this date. Read more about the 2017 harvest and fires.
Today we raise a glass to you. For those of you that are part of our digital community that emailed, signed, tweeted, messaged, liked or shared our plea for a white wine emoji, we are so grateful. If you proudly wear our white wine emoji button, if you always comment, tag, and like our content then we owe you our gratitude. Our efforts are paying off, as the campaign we launched last year calling for a new wine emoji is gaining traction and has been embraced by the global wine community, including several large wineries in California.
It’s not everyday we are featured in major publications such as: Forbes, Today, Decanter, and Wine Spectator. So you can imagine the happy dance we were doing in the cellar today, when we were given credit as the first winery to launch a campaign around the white wine emoji!
“It’s gratifying to see other wine companies follow our example of making wine fun and relevant with their own petitions and campaigns to establish a White Wine Emoji,” said Nat Komes, General Manager of Flora Springs. “The Unicode Emoji Subcommittee encouraged us to work as a global community on the project, and these additional efforts of wine companies and of course white wine lovers around the world will help us reach the goal Flora Springs sought when we started this movement.”
It’s because of our dedicated community on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest that we feel so passionate about the white wine emoji. People from all over the world post messages to us, and we always have to respond with the red wine version of the wine glass emoji, even if we know they are in our white wine only wine club! As a family that has led the way in white wine since our founding over 40 years ago, we’re proud you trust us with this initiative.
Join us in celebrating each and every white wine by calling for the establishment of a White Wine Emoji, by using hashtag #WhiteWineEmoji and tag us @florasprings. Make your voice heard and sign the #WhiteWineEmoji petition now. Learn more about our White Wine Emoji campaign.
This wine had depth and layers. I kept discovering new things in the glass as I tasted. There was grapefruit, pear, nectarine, honeydew melon, tropical fruit, floral notes, brown sugar and it brought me back to remembering what I loved about the Orange Julius drink of my childhood. Flora Springs is also on a mission of creating a white wine emoji and has launched a “Where is the #WhiteWineEmoji” campaign. Because that should be a given! Why should red wine have all the fun?
We have officially picked all of our Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc for the year. We started the Pinot Grigio on August 15th, and finished the Sauvignon Blanc on August 31st.
We then started harvesting the Lavender Hill Chardonnay in Carneros on September 6th. The very next day, we received Merlot from the Estate. This is the earliest date on record for reds.
Vineyard Crew at The Estate
The last week was pretty crazy…Phoenix-like temperatures in the 115 degree range! On top of that, the valley was blanketed with smoke from a fire burning in Butte County. Fortunately, both have subsided and we are back to average harvest temperatures once again…at least for the time being.
We will be bringing in additional Merlot, as well as Petit Verdot from Oakville, on Monday and Tuesday. Then we will finish up with the last of the white grapes on Wednesday.
The harvest has been pretty fast and furious thus far – keeping things exciting. We were very proactive with our irrigation regimen before and during the heatwave, so the fruit is still in excellent condition. We are extremely pleased with the quality thus far, and expect to make some fantastic wines!
Winemaker Paul Steinauer, who has worked at Flora Springs Winery & Vineyards for the past 26 years, used a saber to bless the winery’s Oakville sauvignon blanc grapes that came in Monday morning.
Note: The following was excerpted from an article written by David Stoneberg and published in The Weekly Calistogan. The full article can be found here.
The winter, with its abundant rain and the ensuing growing season that was perfect for ripening wine grapes has many growers optimistic about the 2017 harvest. For some, workers are already harvesting their sauvignon blanc and chardonnay grapes; others, though, are waiting for the first grapes to cross the crushpad…
Oakville – Linda Neal, grower, Tierra Roja Vineyard, “Yount Mill kicked off the Oakville season on Aug. 9, harvesting for sparkling wines, with other white varietals quickly following, reports Kendall Hoxsey-Onysko. Turnbull follows with sauvignon blanc at the winery on Aug. 23. Winemaker Peter Heitz writes, “The flavors are fantastic!” Flora Springs may have started two days later, but did so with a saber flourish as winemaker Paul Steinauer christens the first load…”
Join us for the for seventh annual global online celebration for one of our favorite varietals, Sauvignon Blanc.
Not many wineries can claim to have their own proprietary clone, but our “Soliloquy” clone of Sauvignon Blanc, certified by UC Davis in the 1980s, earns us membership in this very exclusive club. We’re so enamored of this clone that we named a vineyard after it, our Soliloquy Vineyard in the Oakville appellation. Oakville is traditionally Cabernet Sauvignon country, but our family has nurtured these special vines of Sauvignon Blanc as a testament to this extraordinary site and to the potential for Soliloquy – our Single Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc – to stand side by side with Trilogy, our flagship red wine.
Join us for the for seventh annual global online celebration for one of our favorite varietals, Sauvignon Blanc.
Not many wineries can claim to have their own proprietary clone, but our “Soliloquy” clone of Sauvignon Blanc, certified by UC Davis in the 1980s, earns us membership in this very exclusive club. We’re so enamored of this clone that we named a vineyard after it, our Soliloquy Vineyard in the Oakville appellation. Oakville is traditionally Cabernet Sauvignon country, but our family has nurtured these special vines of Sauvignon Blanc as a testament to this extraordinary site and to the potential for Soliloquy – our Single Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc – to stand side by side with Trilogy, our flagship red wine.
