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
2018 was marked by a hot, dry summer that gave way to a mild September with periods of cool weather and rain. Harvest began in-line with historical averages. Grapes for this wine come from Silvershot Vineyards, which is kind of our "estate," if you will. The far more leisurely pace of 2018 meant that they could allow the fruit to hang and develop complexity without blowing out the acid or running up the sugars. This wine comes from a mix of Pinot noir parcels from around the 15 acres planted at Silvershot, including the fruits of the 30 mistake plants of Chardonnay woven into the West Block.
Less than one quarter of the grapes were destemmed into open-top fermenters, and the remaining 80% of the fruit was fermented whole-cluster (either open-top or carbonically). All of their fermentations are kicked off with a little wild yeast pied-de-cuve, which they culture from the vineyard prior to harvest. For fun, they co-fermented the Pinot noir and Chardonnay together, which adds to the depth of color in the wine and some unique flavors. They did foot treading on the fermenters at least once a day (twice, sometimes three times when they were unruly) for 19 days until primary fermentation finished, and then into a mix of mostly neutral French and Oregon oak barrels for nine months to go through native secondary over the winter and spring. They bottled the wine by hand in July of 2019 without any fining or filtration.
The wine exhibits what they consider to be the signature terroir characteristics of Silvershot Vineyards: delicate aromas and flavors of red berries and violets, brick dust and walnut shell, with a finish of dried herbs and saline. As is also typical of wines from the site, it has bright acidity and robust tannins that will unwind and soften over time (or with a vigorous decanting for those who can't wait).
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 our 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 our 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