2015 "El Galpon" Pinot Noir
SOLD OUT!
The story behind this wine takes a bit of explanation. In 2014, I purchased a second concrete egg to explore aging Pinot Noir in concrete. The Shop was the wine that I decided would probably benefit the most from aging in a combination of concrete and oak, and the 2014 Shop is about 20% aged in concrete. I liked the results so much that I purchased a third egg—a larger one—to use in 2015. When it came time to assemble the various pieces into a final blend I was intrigued by the purity and “nakedness” of the Pinot that had been aged in concrete, but I felt that using all of it was maybe a bit too much for the Shop. So rather than radically change the character of the Shop bottling—which is quite popular and should not be messed with—I took a little of the concrete aged wine and bottled it separately. Think of it as The Shop Unplugged—no oak, completely unadorned. It is wonderfully fresh, somewhat lighter bodied than the “regular” Shop bottling (oak adds some body and richness, even neutral oak). I also picked the portion that went into the concrete on the early side, so that it would have higher natural acidity. Concrete tends to neutralize a little of the acid in the wine, and I did not want to lose acidity during aging. All of this leads to a very distinctive version of The Shop Pinot Noir. What about that name? “El Galpon,” roughly translated, means shed in Spanish, and in Chile where I also work, we often joked in the early days, before we had a winery, that we were “galponistas,” in a play on the term “garagiste.” I liked the sound of that word so much that I’ve been trying to find a way to use it ever since. The Shop is named after the vineyard equipment shop that is located near the vineyard, and “El Galpon,” or the Shed, is its more humble sibling. The tractor logo from the Shop label is used in the background of the label so that it’s clear that they share common origins. It seems to me that this wine is best suited to drinking young. I don’t know, to be honest, whether the unadorned freshness of this wine points towards longer aging potential or not—but the purity of the wine is intriguing and I wanted to capture that. Perhaps in the future I will rethink this. Time will tell.
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