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There’s a moment in the winemaking process that feels like opening a handwritten letter from the vineyard — messy, honest, and full of potential. That moment is tasting through ferments.

It’s not about polish. It’s not about perfection. It’s about raw truth. At this stage, every lot is speaking its own language — some loud, some whispering, all evolving by the hour. And Russell? He listens to them all.

Recently, we spent a long, focused stretch tasting through dozens of samples at VintEdge. Barrels weren’t lined up for show — they were lined up to reveal. Each sample pulled was an unfiltered snapshot of a site’s character. No oak influence. No time to settle. Just vineyard and vintage, bare and brilliant.

This is where the blend begins — not by combining components, but by understanding them. What’s the Erba lot telling us this year? How’s Sage Ridge unfolding? What’s the soul of the Melanson Vineyard trying to say?

Russell has always believed that great wines are made with equal parts intuition and discipline. Tasting ferments is where those two collide. One sip might scream with acid and tension. Another might already hum with velvet texture. The job isn’t to decide which is better — it’s to honor what they are and guide them toward what they’re meant to become.

For Adversity Cellars, this is sacred ground. This is where the decisions that shape the future of each wine are first stirred. And this is why we obsess — because every tiny choice we make now echoes all the way into the bottle you’ll open months or years from now.

The magic doesn’t happen by accident. It starts right here, in the ferment. And it tastes like truth.