What is your opinion of the modern Sanford wines? (post-Terlato acquisition) I haven’t found many discussions about their wines on the board.
I haven’t had the fortune to taste any of the older wines - so I cannot make a comparison, but I have been on their mailing list for a few years, and I find their Pinot Noir very enjoyable. In particular, I had a 2008 Dominio del Falcon in Jan 2018 which was outstanding. Block 5, Vista al Rio and the classic La Rinconada are very good too.
Maybe not best values in Sta. Rita Hills, but I still would recommend them. Interested to hear your opinion.
My wife and I visited the tasting room on a tour about 4 years ago and enjoyed everything they poured for us. The Vista al Rinconada Pinot was a standout (but should be at $80/btl) and the Chards were super. The Pinot Noir rose was very good and not a terrible QPR at $24. In summary, very high quality but pricy for me.
If you’re hosting out of town guests in Santa Barbara, it’s a great stop in Santa Rita Hills due the central location and history of the surrounding vineyards. The single vineyard Pinots I thought were nicely done when I’ve tried them, kind of a nice middle ground… a plumper richer style with elegance.
We had some of the standard estate chard at a wedding this weekend and it wasn’t awful but wasn’t anything to write home about.
In my early retail days (~1997-2001), Pinot Noir had not really taken off in NW Louisiana. However, the Sanford “La Riconada” and the “Sanford & Benedict” single-vineyard wines were our store’s top-tier Pinot bottlings, and probably the only ones from SBC. Almost everything else was from Carneros, Oregon, or somewhere else.
I enjoyed the late '90s “La Riconada Vineyard” Pinot Noir wines a lot for the time, especially with a few years of age. I am not sure if they’re even available locally anymore…
I haven’t had the higher-end SVDs and am interested in trying them. I stopped by the tasting room a couple of years ago and tried the lower-end wines, there wasn’t much to note and the $35 tasting fee was a turn off. The property itself is beautiful and worth seeing at least once. I believe there’s only a few other wineries on the Santa Rosa Rd. you can hit up. We stopped by Lafond also.
Most locals are turned off by the fact that Richard Sanford was forced out of the business by his partner, or just don’t like the fact that the original owner/winemaker pioneer is no longer producing the wine.
I liked the “old” Sanfords better; followed them from near the very start; they were the first chards and pinots from Central Coast that I really liked. However, they were very uneven. That’s when Bruno was making the wines and he hit some home runs…and some strike outs. Nice labels. I’ve been to the new tasting room a few times; big $ operation with lots of wines, and I bought a few. They are technically good wines, but not very exciting. They are doing some interesting things with the whites these days. It was just more fun at the old tasting shack. I’ll probably stop again on my next trip.
You are definitely correct. I, for one, am still not all that interested in supporting the winery. The issue that led to Richard`s force out had to do with his unrelenting stance on maintaining organic, bio-dynamic and sustainable farming standards even in times of extreme peril.
Obviously, the business end takes a big hit when most if not all of a crop is lost. Richard would not budge on his principles and therefore was taken out in a less than friendly manner. He and his wife suffered subsequent ill health and struggles in their future wine endeavours. I’m not saying his rigidity was correct and I know many winemakers who just feel they have to make some concessions when crop preservation [and financial stability] is needed, but I do respect him for his level of integrity.
I should add, Ive know Richard since the mid 70s, first having met his wife to be, Thekla, a few years earlier. I've enjoyed many a fine time with them over the decades. Theyre good people who got caught up in the corporate world involving heartless and thankless business people.
Some of my finest early wine days were celebrated with Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs from Sanford & Benedict and later Sanford, especially in the late 70s and the 1988 Sanford Barrel Select Chardonnay remains one of my all time favs. Bruno made some really good wines that stood the test of time and still are performing beautifully.
Sanford in the 80s: great times
Richard and Thekla
Bruno
Fiolek
People forget what a pioneer Richard is.
Mustn’t forget Mrs Fiolek
Mustn’t forget Mrs Fiolek
That would be Carmen Mel.
Richard was certainly a man well ahead of his time - a visionary who is often ‘forgotten’ when the Sta Rita Hills is talked about. Very sad to me since without him and Benedict, one does not know if and when the region would ever have been established.
This is becoming more and more true of ‘pioneers’ in our industry - it’s ‘what have you done for me lately’ versus understanding the true impact many have had on our industry.
I will say that Steve Fennell is a very talented winemaker and Laura Roach, his assistant, is also quite good at what she does. They will probably never been viewed in the same light as Richard and Bruno, and that’s a shame as well.
I think the wines are certainly still worth trying - you’ll never know what you like until you try it, right?
Cheers.
The former CarmenTorres, Blake
My sense if that if the team were allowed to cut yields then the quality could be a lot better than it is. Agree with the positive words about Steve that others have expressed.
What about AlmaRosa? Thoughts?
Elegant wines that eschew stylistic extremes, made by thoughtful and unpretentious people. Would like to see a bit more depth and intensity, as well as consistency across the range, and also the end of the clonal bottlings. The interest in bottling different Dijon clones separately is extremely limited, to my mind.
We drink a bit of Sanford. I had a 1976 Sanford Pinot about 3 years ago and it was the best domestic pinot I have ever had. Their older wines are really well made and fun to drink. Their current releases are pretty good also. They do a good job with their whites and are pretty good qpr’s, but I feel the pinots are bit to high.
I’ve enjoyed the Alma Rosa wines from the start. In general, I think they may have the most beautiful aromatics of the Pinots coming from SRH.
I had many memorable visits to the “old” Sanford, but have not been to the new one since Richard was forced out.
I visited Richard and winemaker Nick de Luca at Alma Rosa a couple of years ago and had a wonderful time there.
Visit with Richard Sanford and Nick de Luca at Alma Rosa, January 2016
Richard Sanford at left, Nick de Luca at center of photo
The 76 would have been the legendary Sanford and Benedict Pinot Noir from their vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills. I never understood why it took the rest of the wine world fifteen years to catch on to the possibilities of this region.