Let us take you back to California in the 70s…
….when the wine-making style was very different to what we see today. The old California style embodied moderate alcohol (under 14%) and lots of savory components to balance out the fruit.
We were founded in 1975 and this is the style we have carried forward all of these years. To learn more about our beginnings, check out the winery's history.
This month, we have put together a bundle of our wines that we feel most embody this style to showcase how it hasn't always been all jam and oak in California.
This bundle includes:
2021 Zayante Zinfandel - An old-school example of the variety from an older vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Full of zesty spice and bright varietal fruit in a way that is very hard to find these days in a world of over-ripe Zinfandel. This one is 13.2% alcohol.
2020 Alicante Bouschet - Once widely planted in California during prohibition, it has unusually thick skins and is one of the very few pigmented pulp (teinturier) grapes. The thick skins allowed it to travel well across the country for home wine production allowed under prohibition. This is a very dense, dark, fruity, and earthy wine that pairs great with heartier fare. Roasted vegetables, meats, and wild mushroom sauces come to mind.
2018 Luchessi Cabernet Sauvignon - New release! The Luchessi vineyard is a perfect example of a rough and rugged mountain vineyard that produces wine with tons of character. It was planted in 1981 on a very steep hillside on the east side of the Santa Cruz Mountains a little northeast of Montebello Ridge. It is an old-fashioned vineyard with head-trained vines and no trellis wires. The site is too steep to have wires, as tractors need to be able to cultivate in either direction depending on the slope. This vineyard just looks like it has to make wine of character, and it does. Year after year there is an incredible depth of fruit, rich cocoa, and earthy spice. This is a Cabernet that can age for decades in the cellar but it is surprisingly open and accessible in its youth as well.
