Ahah! Thank you, Dave - my ADHD-addled brain didn’t connect the dots.
Admins, there is another thread. Please MERGE.
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I just received a “Save the Date” email from this winery. It looks like their initial release is Tuesday. Nov. 14. The descriptions of their wines—a Moon Mountain Cab and three Santa Barbara County Syrahs—do sound interesting to me. However, I know nothing about this winery. The email was signed by Reid Griggs. After a bit of internet research I am pretty impressed with his resume.
Does anybody have any more insight into this winery?
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Started a thread here. I am going to uncork one tonight! And as you can see I was the first to recommend MacDonald, Beta/Jasud, Sandlands and others…) Lets hope this continues the streak!
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Thank you Robert. Some very interesting information there.
Apologies to berserkers for cluttering up the forum with a topic that has been previously covered.
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Just curious- What’s the cost on these wines?
Not mentioned in the email.
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Merged three threads into one - Tidings appears to be the new hotness!!
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Reid poured me a glass of the 19 Cab at the Bedrock harvest party. It is a beautiful wine.
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OK Party People!
First off thank you to @H_Wallace_Jr for his review, I needed that validation from a professional to give me confidence to write this review because I was wondering is this wine really as good as I think it is or do I just want to love it because Graeme MacDonald spoke so highly about it…
I don’t drink much Cali Cab. I buy Beta / Jasud, Ceritas and MacDonald. I drink old Diamond Creek, Dunn, Forman and a few others and I am lucky to have a decent amount in the cellar. I occasionally drink some newer producers like Arnot-Roberts, Di Costanzo and a few others.
This wine is absolutely f#@king outstanding. It is so balanced, elegant, filigreed and just pure delicious. It is ripe as it should be after all we are in California, but it is not in anyway over the top. It is a dark ruby color with cool climate, mineral / graphite aromatics. The tannins are so elegant and pure. It is delicious, smooth, and savory on the palate. With some air it gets a bit smokey and a little dirt melds with the juicy fruit. It paired perfectly with a roast chicken from I Sodi.
In short an elegant, balanced, filigreed, juicy wine that has beautiful restraint. It gained complexity throughout dinner. Simply put it shows what California does best with a dose of restraint.
Needless to say I am taking my full allocation.
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Thanks for your tasting note Robert! I think I originally signed up based on Chris Cottrell’s endorsement…anyways I remembered listening to Reid and Cody from Desire Lines on an episode of “The Winemakers Podcast” a couple years back, so I dug it up. For those interested, Reid starts talking specifically about these wines around the 30 minute mark. Overall a great listen. They both provide insights into their own background and style.
Spotify
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Curses to Robert, Chris, Hardy, Graeme, and the rest of you frickin’ enablers.
I’m 100% going to be buying this wine now
HAVE TO STOP READING WINE TALK
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Thank you. Look forward to listening. Chris is an old friend, we just caught up in NY at the Les Enfants du Marche popup at Claud.
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Exactly. I had signed up. When the save the date email came in I didn’t remember signing up or why I would have. I was safely ignoring it all day, and then I checked in here.
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Another day on WineBerserkers and another credit card on fire (or about to be). 
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Piling on!
I’ve met Reid many times given his time working for Graeme’s consulting business and also via his work at Stony Hill, but I’ve never seen him socially until today. I saw this thread a while back and now that harvest is on the back-end, convinced Reid to pour me all his wines today at lunch. We met at Angele, a killer French-stye bistro in Napa on the river.
I had no idea what to expect, either for quality or style, but was intrigued by this thread.
Well, Mr. Dentice should get kudos for this thread because he was right, these wines are stunning. And although prices are not fully set, they represent phenomenal QPRs. Not cheap, not expensive, but so good for the price.
First off, more background on Reid… he worked on three vintages for Graeme, but on top of that he has also worked for Harlan, Bedrock, Dalla Valle, and Pierre Gonon, in St Joseph, which is a pretty astounding feather in his cap. He is now the winemaker for Stony Hill.
He is making three Syrahs and one Cab for Tidings. The Syrahs are sourced from Bien Nacido, blocks X and Z, and White Hawk Vineyard. The Cab is 25 years old (or so) vines from a vineyard on Moon Mountain I have never heard of before.
The first release is 2020 for the Syrahs and 2019 for the Cab. Santa Barbara was not affected in any way by the fires we had in 2020, so don’t fret at all about the vintage. There is no taint and in fact Santa Barbara basically made the best wines on the West Coast in 2020.
Here are my notes from a few hours ago. All the wines were double decanted over 6.5 hours.
2020 Tidings “Syrah” Santa Barbara County
A blend of Bien Nacido and White Hawk (isn’t that what Maggie’s Lillian was?), combines earthiness with minerally fruit. Medium-bodied, slick and approachable, one can drink it now with a long decant or store for 3-4 more years. Should age well but might be too hard to keep hands off it for long. Only 19 cases produced. Ninteen! 13.5% alcohol. Price $40-45.
2020 Tidings “Bien Nacido” Syrah, Santa Maria Valley
A combo of Blocks X and Z, the two most famous Syrah blocks in the vineyard, this one clocks in at just 12.8% alcohol. 30% stems. Dusty aromas of white minerals and red fruit, it is medium-plus body. A perfect pinch of “tightness” holds it together very well. Drink with a long decant or wait 2-4 years. Should age very well. Only 27 cases produced. Price $60-65.
2020 Tidings “White Hawk” Syrah, Santa Barbara County
An awesome combination of black/blue fruit with earthiness, a different animal than BN. Medium-full body, 14.2% alc, I think he said 15% stems, this has simply awesome depth. Northern Rhone in a big way, perhaps minus the white pepper aromas, it comes off as a wild animal. Bigger than the BN but not to be confused with Andremily or SQN, in size. 36 cases produced. Price $60-65
2019 Tidings “Moonridge Vineyard” Cabernet Sauvignon, Moon Mtn. District, Sonoma
This feels like a Sonoma interpretation of Mayacamas, from Mt Veeder. Medium to medium-full body, crunchy red fruits, elevated acid (compared to Napa) and reminds me a bit of an excellent vintage of Laurel Glen from back in the day. No new oak at all. 14.2% alc., 56 cases produced. $85-90/bottle. PS- I had the 2021, as well. He will not be releasing a 2020 of this.
Despite his time under Graeme, Harlan and Dalla Valle, his Cabs are not in those styles, which is interesting. I suspect fans of Ketan Moody’s wines will like Reid’s Cabs. He tells me he and Ketan are splitting another Cab vineyard on Moon Mountain beginning next year.
He makes his wines at Bedrock at the moment, and I feel the “polish” of the Bedrock style has made it into these wines, along with a lower (but not intentionally lower) ripeness of style compared to what comes from similar wines in Paso. This style is mostly determined by vineyard and block selection, rather than intentionally picking early. I believe he told me he picked his 2023 Bien Nacido Block X just a few days ago. Santa Maria is an ice-box.
The packaging is very nice. Note that the vineyard names and not his winery name are at the top of the labels. The bottles will all fit in anyone’s cellar racks. Bravo.
By my calcs, if one were to buy three bottles of each wine, you can walk away with a case of these for $850-900 after all tax and shipping, which is pretty amazing. Good luck on the release!
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Thanks for all of this great info. The Syrahs sound pretty special. It’s not often you see those ABVs from those vineyards.
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Glen FTW.
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I love Ketans wines. Guess ill be buying the Moon mountain cab then!
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