Hello from Beka

If I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you already, I wanted to take a moment to say hey there!  I’m Beka, the Tasting Room Manager for E11even.  For those of you who know me personally, you are very aware that I am loud, energetic, and a little too clumsy for my own good.  But really, at my core I am a passionate person, finding it quite difficult not to let this side show when chatting about a bottle of wine.  Strangely enough though, my first love was not wine, but rather the culinary arts. Fancy that?! As a child, I loved helping my mom in the kitchen and jumped at every opportunity to bake or cook with her. Yet, it wasn’t until I was sixteen that my hobby accelerated into my passion. I began working with local catering companies and hoped to attend culinary school after graduating high school. Reluctantly, I took the advice of my mentor and well-respected chef and chose to get a degree first. I attended Westmont College as a Communication’s Major and during my junior year, had the opportunity to study abroad in Aix-en-Provence. The university just so happened to offer a Wine 101 course that piqued my interest. After all, if I were to pursue a culinary career, I should probably have a base knowledge of the most sought after pairing of all. Little did I know, that class that I took ‘just for fun,’ would drastically alter my plans. I quickly became captivated by the mysteries, complexity and history of the wine world and got my first job in the wine industry immediately after graduating college. Since then, I have worked Carr Winery, was the pastry Chef for Café Ana, managed and operated Wine Shepherd, worked at Au Bon Climat, and have finally landed myself here at E11even Wines. I am thrilled to be able to promote and pour these amazing Estate grown wines by Andrew Murray.

If you wish to keep up with all things E11even, please sign up for our newsletter. Every month, I channel my inner chef and custom create recipes that pair beautifully with our wines. Weather it is the floral Fruit Salad paired with a spicy Asian noodle dish, or a rib eye covered in a Roquefort cream sauce to pair with our Cabernet Sauvignon, there is bound to be a pairing you find exciting, new, and delicious. The emails also include a custom Spotify playlist for you to enjoy while you wine and dine with E11. 

With just a sip, you will be taken you to new heights, because our wines truly go to 11!

Cheers!

Beka

Let's Get Lost in the Wild with Fruit Salad and She'll Be Right

We are so excited to release the highly anticipated 2020 She'll Be Right and 2020 Fruit Salad. Both of these natural wines are literally bottled sunshine after a light spring rain-storm: metaphorically, these bottles are filled with lightning and rainbows. She'll Be Right is an early picked red blend with crunchy flavors of cherries, pomegranate and cranberries, while the Fruit Salad is an aromatic white with notes of jasmine, summer citrus, rose petal and stone fruit. These unique blends were harvested at just the right moment to retain vibrant fruit flavors, a fresh natural acidity and a lower alcohol (12%). 

We once again bottled these wines in 1 Liter (25% more wine in every bottle :), re-usable, re-sealable Italian "growlers" with silk-screened labels. After consuming the wine, we urge you to re-use the bottles as decanters, water bottles, vases, etc. Drop us a line and let us know how you have given new life to these bottles.

For the white blend, Fruit Salad, we mostly whole cluster pressed the grapes to a stainless steel tank after a bit of skin contact. Fermentation started spontaneously and we started blending the various lots together during fermentation. Subsequent aging was done in a mix of stainless steel and neutral French Oak Burgundy barrels, as we wanted the pure fruit flavors and aromas to shine through.

Let's dig into the fermentation technique a bit...for the She'll Be Right, we employed a semi-carbonic maceration style. After harvesting the fruit in the middle of the night (like the photo below) 

we transferred the grapes to open top fermenters as gently as possible to avoid breaking any grapes. Then we placed lots of dry ice on top of the grapes and sealed up the fermenters to avoid any oxygen. After a few days, the grapes started to ferment intracellularly (within each berry). We left the grapes like this for 2-3 weeks then pressed the wine off skins so the wine could finish fermentation. This all results in a very soft, "crunchy", higher acid, lower tannin wine that is ready to drink upon release. The She'll Be Right is a very laissez-faire style of winemaking, where we just had to trust the process. I am more of a control freak, so this was a rather strange experience for me. But, I love the results. This wine is best served lightly chilled and should be enjoyed over the next 12 months.

We hope that you love them as much as we loved crafting them for you...