It is likely the obscure Englishman Richard Franck first penned the phrase “necessity is the mother of invention” in an even more obscure 17th century tome. Perhaps that’s why so many people assign the proverb to Plato.
A little name recognition doesn’t hurt.
Whoever first uttered the phrase, winemaker Michael Wood fully understands its meaning. Needing to replenish his stock of Sauvignon Blanc, he bottled the 2014 vintage two months ahead of his normal schedule.
Wood ended up with an intricate, fresh and thoroughly engaging wine.
The aromas seem to have drifted from the tropics, carrying hints of mango, pineapple and perhaps even a few slices of guava. But this is followed by an olfactory memory from closer to home — creamy and bright, as if juicy orange wrapped around cool milk.
That’s right, a Creamsicle. The notion shouldn’t be there, considering the wine’s 100 percent stainless steel treatment. And really it’s just a flash within the lush, tropical longing, one that settles quickly into peaches still on the limb. But it indicates that the Shed Horn 2014 Sauvignon Blanc will be both intriguing and familiar — a wine of distant discovery that happily mingles on a back yard patio.
Fresh tropical fruits drape your palate, again suggesting pineapple, mango and guava. Yet a sharper note, like grapefruit dices through, lending the wine a keen edge, though not a cutting one. There’s a soft tone and while the fruit flavors are dense, they are also incisive. They have their say and depart quickly, leaving and a fine, long finish of freshly snapped lemongrass.
It’s a journey that snaps to a clean, crisp, refreshing close.
“It came out really nice,” the winemaker observed.
Wood insists he did little more than crush the grapes and settle the wine into fermentation tanks. He typically brings in grapes from three to four different vineyards when preparing Sauvignon Blanc — one of the methods he uses to ensure complex, sometimes mysterious layers emerge from the bottle.
For his 2014 Shed Horn Sauvignon Blanc he decided to introduce a new AVA (American Viticultural Area) into his wine, adding grapes from Brassfield’s High Valley.
Perhaps this accounts for the wine’s cheerfully provocative nature, although Wood returns to the accelerated schedule, the necessity that forced the finished product.
“We bottled it pretty quickly,” he said. “Maybe that had something to do with it being so bright and fresh.”
The Valley Fire devoured Shed Horn’s winery (and the family home), along with some varietals ready for bottling and older favorites. Fortunately for fans of Lake County wines, the Shed Horn tasting room in downtown Middletown and Wood’s off site storage facility at Steele Wines in Kelseyville, were undamaged.
That’s a good thing, for Shed Horn’s 2014 Sauvignon Blanc is a journey you want to share.
Dave Faries can be reached at 900-2016
