Varietal
Interlude is a wine made with merlot grapes and then enhanced with natural flavors by adding pure cocoa, dried coconut and vanilla beans. The merlot gives the wine a backbone of raspberry flavors and red berry color. The cocoa, dried coconut and vanilla beans add the fine flavors of exceptional European chocolate. Interlude is fortified by adding brandy during fermentation to kill the yeasts (arresting fermentation) which produces a very sweet wine and typical of similar style dessert wines, it is high in alcohol.

Vinification
This wine fermented for 2 days before being arrested by brandy fortification. The wine was drained from the skins to barrel and aged for 2 months in older American oak. The wine was bottled, unfiltered on January 18, 2006. Alcohol 19.3%, T.A 8.41, pH 3.77, residual sugar 15.0%.

Tasting Notes
The wine is complex and provides flavors and aromas of chocolate, raspberry, plum, bramble and spice notes. This is a fun wine to be enjoyed with cheesecake, truffles or fine dark chocolate.

Karen Ernsberger
Winemaker

Winemaker Bio
Determined to become a veterinarian, Karen Ernsberger enrolled at UC Davis in the 1970’s as zoology major. While waiting for a requisite class to become available she enrolled in “Vit 3” thinking the class material looked mildly interesting, albeit not overly challenging, but then again not a class that might threaten her stellar grade point average. One taste of Vit 3, and the science of wine, and Karen never looked back.

After graduating from UC Davis, Karen spent her first few professional years working at Buena Vista Winery. She then worked at Simi under the tutelage of Zelma Long. She joined Benziger in 1992 and in addition to making dessert wines at Benziger and Imagery, she is charged with managing all the many entities for bottling Benziger and Imagery wines.

Karen’s eyes still dance when she speaks of winemaking, blending and especially working in the lab “playing with yeasts and fermentation.” Karen grew-up as the kid down the street who gets the chemistry kit for Christmas and before you know it things start happening (usually to garbage cans). That’s Karen with wine, most particularly Port.

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