Vineyard: Irish Vineyard

ABV: 12.2%   RS: 0.0

Flavor Notes: Clean and crisp with lemon curd fruitiness. 

Suggested Pairings: Germans are known to have sekt (sparkling riesling) parties where guests just enjoy sparkling riesling, because it’s beautiful on its own! If you want to pair it, briny oysters or other seafood will do well, or try flavors like ginger and lemongrass. 

“What does sparkling wine not go with?” - Sean O’Keefe

Vinification: The Simplicissimus has similarities to several winemaking styles, but lies somewhere in between. We didn’t use the traditional method; no added sulfur, yeast, or sugar—natural grape sugar provided sparkling character. We also didn’t use the Pét-Nat method, since we riddled the wine for clarity and to improve ageability.Winemaker Sean O’Keefe created something truly unique, using a mixture of hands-off methods and pulling the appropriate steps from each. He prefers the term method ancestral. 

1. The grapes were picked later for a higher brix content and acid balance.
2. It was fermented with the non-traditional yeast Torulaspore Delbrueckii, which was used in the base wine, and fermented with no further additions besides the ambient cellar yeasts already existing in the environment. This was a very “hands-off” style.
3. Sean halted the primary fermentation early by chilling the juice, leaving 22 g/L of naturally occurring residual sugar. We did not add any sulfur at this time.
4. Afterwards, the wine rested on its lees for 4 months, adding to the body and complexity of the base wine
5. We then lightly filtered the base wine and sent it to 2 Lads Winery for bottling. After the wine returned to Mari, it sat in the bottle fermenting for one year on its bottle lees in the caves. Note: 2 Lads did not add any dosage at this time.
6. The bottles were then sent back to 2 Lads for riddling and disgorging and were topped off with more of the same wine—no other additions. 

Suggested Cellaring: Designed to be enjoyed now through 2020, but could age to 2025.

Simplicissimus: A difficult way of saying something simple. This thought can be applied to how we made Simplicissimus. The “hands off” approach and unique fermentation was a more complex way to create this wine than the usual traditional method. 

• Simplicissimus was a German Satirical magazine published from 1896-1967 that featured bright, bold, and artistically modern graphics Winemaker Sean O’Keefe enjoys. It published outspoken politically daring works from writers who were critical of rigid Prussian military figures and German social and class distinctions.  
• The name originally stems from a book titled Simplicius Simplicissimus from 1669, known as a picaresque novel—a fiction genre depicting the adventures of witty or roguish lower social class heroes in corrupt societies. It was inspired by the events and horrors of the Thirty Year War which devastated Germany from 1618 to 1648, and is regarded as the first adventure novel in the German language and the first German novel masterpiece.