Yep, saw that and heard from Brook Williams, the former owner of the vineyard. It should be interesting - it’s a fairly large site, containing about 39 acres planted currently, with more than half of that being different clones of syrah, along with the other varieties you mentioned. I know that Bob Lindquist and his wife, Louisa, were still getting fruit as of this past harvest (Louisa has the Verdad label concentrating on Spanish varieties) - it’ll be interesting if they are still able to retain that fruit or what the future plans are. And if I’m not mistaken, this vineyard is nearly across the street from John Alban’s vineyard.
Did anybody see on Instagram that Andremily are now also making a grenache? I saw this on their instagram stories earlier this week. Wondering if anyone has tried it besides the JD 97-99 score he has on his site.
I opened one of these. Quintessential “Paso Giant” with concentrated gobs of strawberry, game. Hot and in your face. I liked it (sometimes enjoy boozy wines to mix it up, and especially boozy bba stouts) and it’s super well made, but probably won’t open the next one for at least 10 years.
Thanks for that clarification. I was comparing to some big Alban and a few Paso wines and always thought it was out of that same area. Looking at a map of the vineyard, it’s technically SB county but clear on the other side of the mountain range near Cuyama. My experience with that that vineyard might only be Grace grenache which would be polar opposite in style. “Full throttle” is spot on.
I’m confused. Are we talking extended barrel aged, like SQN? I thought they only made Syrah (#1,2,3…) and Mourvedre. I don’t think they keep any wine in barrel for 3+ years like SQN or Alban. Not surprised about Grenache since SQN has always made it.
I searched and found the offer in my inbox. It said allocation guaranteed until May 18 so I went to the website and there was no allocation. Then I realized the guarantee date was in 2020. I’m a little late. I notice that there is no mention of these newer wines on the website, just the syrah and mourvedre.
I suppose that says a lot about house style vs terroir-driven winemaking, right?
Wines like these could be from many places on the Central Coast, provided the growing season is long enough to provide ‘hang time’ without totally raisining or wrecking the chemistry of the fruit. To be fair, that is an aspect of terroir, i.e. having the capacity to ripen fruit to ~16% ABV with later harvest and not ending up with a straight dessert wine.
For a producer making one cuvee per base variety blended from several vineyards in different sub-AVAs, pursuit primarily of a house style in a marketable style is a logical move.