AnnaLena Pairs With Rigour & Whimsy to Create Single Vineyard ‘Goldie’ Viognier

the GOODS from Annalena

Vancouver, BC | When Rigour & Whimsy offered the opportunity for us to pick our favourite single barrel of wine and bottle it, of course, we said yes! We were looking for something unique to serve in the restaurant. Something, most importantly, that we could pair with Chef Mike Robbin’s tasting menu at AnnaLena.

Costa and Jody of Rigour & Whimsy have an approach to life that we can really relate to. They moved to the Okanagan a few years ago to pursue their winemaking dream and they are simply doing it right. Their wines are unique, characterful, honest, unapologetic and delicious. They work with farmers who practice sustainable farming and they use winemaking techniques which simply let the grapes do the talking. Costa specializes in skin contact white wines, which allows him to get everything out of the grape (flavour, complexity, and nutrients) by fermenting them with the skins, stems and all.

In January they invited us to the winery to taste through this year’s barrel samples, and there was one barrel that we all agreed just had to be bottled on its own. This was a single vineyard viognier from Osoyoos.

Costa crushed the grapes and let them ferment naturally in tank at cellar temperature on the skins for two months. He then pressed the juice off the skins and transferred the wine into a large puncheon barrel, where it stayed over the winter. We then bottled the wine by hand, straight from the barrel in April. The final product is an approachable wine with notes of fuzzy peach, rose, grapefruit and beeswax.

Goldie will be available exclusively At AnnaLena, Hundy and Their There from August 19th.