Paxxito 2021

Paxxito was introduced with the 2001 vintage. It is the product of winemaking practices dating back to the 5th century BC, and celebrated by the poet Virgil in Georgics, ca 40 BC. Among our wines, several share Paxxito’s universal acceptance at wine competitions and in the critical press (detailed below), but none with the obvious intensity of delight that underwrites its acclaim. We are never disappointed to hear it described as the most beautiful wine we make.

Paxxito belongs to that traditional European class of wines, before the discovery of Port, which presents the highest natural concentration of extracted fruit, including original acidity and sugar, with the most intense aromas and palate, of the longest life expectancy in bottle. Part of what makes Paxxito all the more appealing to us as winemakers, and gratifying to the taster, is the palpable simplicity of its method of production, relying on the least interference of technology and the highest allowance of time and manual care in its vinification. The passito style creates a dessert wine which is at least the equal in delicacy, suavity and power of those relying upon botrytis (“noble rot”) or freezing (eisswein or cryogenics).
This is the natural style, for a growing region of unpredictable timing of late autumn frost or progress of rot, and with our Italian heritage it is also irresistibly embedded in the tradition of vin santo.

The grapes are harvested at optimum vitality, Moscato Ottonel and Vidal Blanc in roughly equal proportions. Moscato, for its famous, luscious aromas and flavors, and Vidal for its framing acidity, are left to dry on racks in their own dedicated farm shed at the estate, open to the air, for 2 to 3 months. In that extended period, the clusters are further hand-selected while the grapes raisinize, concentrating the sugars and acidity with which they were harvested, yielding four times less than their potential volume.

This extravagant inefficiency is rewarded at the grape press by the most extravagant opulence, of a gentle flow like honey lightly clouded, which is allowed to settle for a time in stainless steel tank, where fermentation will be triggered spontaneously by native yeasts with which the estate’s own bees have inoculated the berries.

The fermenting wine is racked into very neutral small oak barriques, dedicated to this wine alone for as many as 10 or more previous vintages. There, fermentation rises and falls, for more than two years, as the more capable yeasts take over from inert yeasts in time.
This extended lees enrichment, taking place in multiple individual barrels of the vintage, contributes vital layers of complexity to the finished wine, so that the final act of bottling inevitably constitutes a blending as well. At this climactic phase, samples are taste-tested by the winemakers from each barrel, occasionally with small increments (less than 10 percent) from an older vintage, playing a finishing part. At long last, the wine is bottled with slight filtration, as a vibrant, deep gold, presenting unrivaled opulence and length.

Even a partial competition history for Paxxito affirms that what is true of Octagon, is true of this wine. If it made its way into bottle, it has already passed the strictest tests of the vintage, and it will age superbly for well over 10 years.