Visit us to shop and hang in person or order online for quick and easy pick up.
Address
210 EAST VERMILION STREET LAFAYETTE, LA 70501
Hours
Tues-Thurs
1pm-7pm
Friday & Saturday
1pm-8pm
Closed Sunday & Monday
21 and Over Only to Buy Wine.
Choose In-store Pickup To Order Wine Online.
We Do Not Ship Wine or Alcohol.
We do ship Everything Else!
SHOP NOW
This was their first crack at Chardonnay, which is finally having its renaissance in Oregon. 2018 was a great year to launch this experiment, as the hot, dry summer gave way to a mild fall with periods of cool weather and rains. This enabled the grapes to mature slowly and develop beautiful flavor while retaining good acidity at lower sugars. The grapes were harvested in early October, and had just the smallest amount of perfect pink botrytized berries. After a gentle pressing, they settled the juice for two days before racking into a mix of older French, Oregon, and Hungarian oak barrels. The wine fermented in barrel very slowly over nine months on its fine lees, with occasional stirring (less than 10 times total). After completing primary and secondary fermentation, the wine was racked just once more to tank for final blending before bottling unfined and unfiltered.
For their first attempt at vinifying Chardonnay, they are pretty pleased with the results. The barrel fermentation, although using older wood, yielded aromas of toasted coconut and brioche that wrap around the core palate of yellow plum and beeswax. The richness provided by the extended lees contact is cut through on the finish with fresh, citrusy acidity, and savory minerality.
Fossil & Fawn started out as a completely reasonable idea in the late summer of 2011, and quickly spiraled into a much more complex, frustrating, terrifying, and unbelievably rewarding venture. They began with the notion of making a small amount of wine from their family vineyard as a single-site bottling, simply because no one else had done so before. The plan was to have a nice example to show to potential buyers of the Pinot noir and Pinot gris grown there. Somewhere along the line they figured that for all the effort, they might as well make it an official wine label. After a series of fits and starts (mostly fits), Fossil & Fawn was born proper as a wine label, nearly two years after they had that very reasonable idea.
They aren't too interested in bold manifestos or style declarations - their goal is to make wines that they like. They've found that the kind of wines they like, and thus the wines they make, are executed with a natural approach that allows the vineyard to do the talking. That means instead of buying yeast, they culture it from the vineyard itself, with no other additives or enzymes. It also means as-little-as-necessary sulfur additions and aging all of their wines in barrels, with very little new oak. The minimalist, natural approach is a nice way of saying they do things the hard way, by-hand. The upside is that they end up with wines that they like. Wines that have acidity, structure, and balance that will brilliantly compliment dinner tonight, or be a worthy reward for patience after a few years in the cellar.
Denny & Katie
Owners
Your friendly neighborhood wine shop and tiny bar, focused on small production wines and conservas. Connect with us on Instagram for suggestions on your next bottle and to follow along in our downtown Lafayette wine journey.
Visit us to shop and hang in person or order online for quick and easy pick up.
Hours
Tues-Thurs
1pm-7pm
Friday & Saturday
1pm-8pm
Closed Sunday & Monday