In 2020, as the world was struggling with the first pandemic in a century, we worked hard to continue to grow the best grapes possible here in our vineyard.  Most of us would like to put that year behind us as quickly as we can, but what we found was that even through diligent vineyard skill we sometimes end up with wines that don’t quite make the cut for our Cadenza brand.  This is the case with the 2020 Duet.

This time around, Duet is approximately half Merlot and half Cabernet Franc.  The wine was fermented in tanks and aged in new French oak barrels for fourteen months just like we do for our Cadenza wines.  In the summer of 2021 as I was tasting through our barrels, I realized that these two lots didn’t have the same je ne sais quoi that I look for in wines for Cadenza.  They were still very nice wines, and very much like 2020 they found a home in the Allegro line of wines.