I’ve posted a portion of a report on a mid-January five-day wine trip with friends to California’s Central Coast. There’s a separate report on each day of the trip, and the portion below is from Part 2 of 5. I’ll post segments from the rest of the trip throughout this week. The full reports for each day of the trip can be found on the Grape-Nutz.com website – here’s the link for Part 2:
Central Coast - January 2015 - Part 2
Paix Sur Terre
D’Alfonso-Curran Wines
Liquid Farm
I was joined on my trip by a few other Bay Area friends – Jane, Warren, Mary, and Alan – and we met up for the tour with Grape-Nutz’ own Eric Anderson, who made the journey north from Southern California.
Liquid Farm
We needed to drive back along Santa Rosa Road and then up into the heart of Santa Ynez Valley for our last wine visit of the day. We were heading to the home of Nikki and Jeff Nelson, proprietors of Liquid Farm, a rising star of California Chardonnay. I’d tasted the Liquid Farm wines at a Sta. Rita Hills tasting in San Francisco in 2013 and was impressed. Nikki and Jeff hold a pop-up tasting at their place about once a month, and we were fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of it. Located about midway between Los Olivos and Santa Ynez, the house has a large front lawn that provided a perfect spot for the informal tasting. We’d coordinated to meet there with a few other people, and we were joined by friends Traci (also visiting from the Bay Area) and John Tomasso (from nearby Buellton). John also introduced us to his brother Lucas and to Amy Dixon, of The Baker’s Table artisan bakery in Santa Ynez. There were a number of other people tasting there in the late afternoon, and a couple of the Nelsons’ dogs provided entertainment.
Nikki and Jeff are longtime Chardonnay lovers, but they found themselves drawn more to Old World wines that displayed less alcohol, more acidity, and more earth and mineral character than most of what they found from California – Nikki has cited the wines of Chablis, Beaune, and Macon as being inspirations. Both Nikki and Jeff have long backgrounds in the wine business. Nikki, who has a degree in wine and viticulture with a focus on wine business from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, worked for Henry Wine Group (a noted fine wine distributor) following college. She and Jeff met while she was working there – he worked for over 20 years in Southern California sales and marketing for various Champagne and Burgundy producers.
In 2009, Nikki and Jeff decided to establish their own label to create the type of Chardonnay they enjoyed, and they picked Sta. Rita Hills as the place to source fruit for these wines, due to its cool climate and distinctive soils, particularly the white diatomaceous soil found in many sites throughout the appellation. They started out with just four barrels, producing two wines, both sourced from Kessler-Haak Vineyard (where Nikki and Jeff were married in 2011). Those two wines were the “White Hill,” which they felt had a more mineral-driven character reminiscent of Chablis, and “Golden Slope,” which reminded them more of Meursault from Burgundy’s Côte-d’Or. They chose the winery name since they feel that at its core, producing wine is creating liquid from farming. And the labels help tell the story that what is below ground can impact the character of grapevines and other plants as much as what happens above ground.
Nikki Nelson
From those first four barrels of wine through 2012, the Liquid Farm winemaking was guided by the consulting team of Dragonette Cellars, particularly Brandon Sparks-Gillis. Jeff had met Brandon and John Dragonette some years earlier, and Nikki and Jeff credit Brandon with helping them get their own project off the ground. In 2011, they added their only non-Chardonnay wine to the line-up (at least to date), a Mourvèdre-based Rosé sourced from the warmer Happy Canyon AVA and inspired by Bandol. They also expanded their Chardonnay offerings that year with their “Four” bottling, named for a number of important “fours” in their lives, including those original four barrels that launched their winery. In 2013 they added two Santa Maria Valley Chardonnays to the mix with the “La Hermana” and “Bien Bien” bottlings. Annual production has grown from that original 100 cases to around 4,000 cases now, but there are no current plans to expand much more beyond that.
Just days before harvest began in 2013, Liquid Farm moved their winemaking operation from its original location in Lompoc to the Buellton Wine Center, known informally as Buellton Bodegas. The Dragonette crew also stepped back in 2013, and Liquid Farm transitioned to a new winemaker in James Sparks, who had worked on the Liquid Farm wines at Dragonette from the start. After working his way up at Dragonette since 2009, becoming Liquid Farm’s winemaker seemed a natural move. In addition, Nikki shifted to working on Liquid Farm full-time in 2011 and Jeff followed suit in 2014, and they plan to become more hands-on in the winemaking process. As of the beginning of this year, Nikki and Jeff are living at their house in Santa Ynez Valley full-time, after years of traveling back and forth and staying with friends in the area (with plenty of stays at the Embassy Suites in Lompoc in the first couple of years).
Jeff Nelson (right)
The Liquid Farm winemaking is straightforward, with a goal of minimal intervention. Fruit is picked early to retain acidity, pressed, and barrel-fermented using predominantly native yeast. Malolactic fermentation is also left to proceed naturally. Most barrels are older oak – 70% or more for the wines released to date. The “White Hill” bottling also includes a small percentage (10-20%) of Chardonnay made in stainless steel.
Nikki and Jeff were quite busy mingling with their guests at their tasting, so their friend Mike was behind the small tasting bar that was set up on the lawn (and in keeping with spotting people we knew throughout our wine tour, we saw Mike the following day at the Avant wine bar in Buellton). Nikki told us that James Sparks would have been there that afternoon but he and his wife had just had their first baby a couple of days earlier. We started off with the 2013 Rosé – now sold out at the winery, with the new 2014 vintage bottled shortly after our visit and released by late February. Though Liquid Farm is known for their Chardonnays, their Rosé, made mostly from Mourvèdre with a small percentage of Grenache, has been a standout.
Traci Michaelson, John Tomasso, Amy Dixon, Lucas Tomasso
We went on the Chardonnays from there, beginning with the 2013 “White Hill,” the leanest of the Liquid Farm Chards. We got a preview of the soon-to-be-released 2013 “Golden Slope” as well as a taste of the sold-out 2012 vintage from magnum (that mag, along with a couple of other bottles poured that afternoon, came from Nikki and Jeff’s personal wine library). The 2012 “Four” is also sold out, but Mike had a bottle of the inaugural 2011 “Four” for us to taste. The 2013 vintage of “Four” will be released – mostly to the Liquid Farm wine club – later this year. We finished up with the two new Santa Maria Valley Chardonnay bottlings. The 2013 “La Hermana” is named for being the sister to Liquid Farm’s Sta. Rita Hills bottlings, while the 2013 “Bien Bien” (sourced from 40-year old vines at Bien Nacido Vineyard) was another sneak preview.
Liquid Farm got Chardonnay fruit from a couple of additional Sta. Rita Hills vineyards in 2014 – 3D Ranch (a source for Brewer-Clifton, it’s located between Lafond and Ampelos vineyards), and La Rinconada, planted by Richard Sanford in 1997. And in a departure for the winery, 2014 also marked their first year working with Pinot Noir – they got small amounts from Radian and Huber vineyards in Sta. Rita Hills.
We ended our visit to Liquid Farm by watching a spectacular Santa Ynez Valley sunset. Even though it was getting a bit chilly with the sun dipping below the horizon, everyone stayed to snap photos, then turned around a few moments later to shoot more of them as the color of the clouds above the western horizon just kept getting more intense.
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We all had a great time at the Liquid Farm pop-up tasting. It was an informal, relaxing way to try their current wines – and some past releases as well – and it was nice to meet Nikki and Jeff. They were being good hosts and making sure they talked with everyone at their tasting, and since they were so busy, I didn’t have as much time to talk with them as I would have liked – hopefully I’ll be able to do that on a future visit. In just a few short years, Liquid Farm’s wines have become some of Santa Barbara County’s benchmark Chardonnays. Tasting through their bottlings, it was clear that they’ve succeeded in bringing out the earthy and minerally elements that they’ve aimed for, while not sacrificing fruit and maintaining a fine balance between richness and acidity in all the wines. The 2013 “White Hill,” 2012 “Golden Slope,” and 2013 “La Hermana” were my favorites among the Liquid Farm Chardonnays, and their Mourvèdre-based Rosé was also excellent. For lovers of California Chardonnay with a lighter touch, Liquid Farm should be one of your “go to” wineries.
Current Releases, Pre-releases, and Library Wines
Liquid Farm 2013 Rosé, Vogelzang Vineyard, Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara. From 95% Mourvèdre and 5% Grenache, made in neutral oak. Light salmon color, this showed red fruits, fresh herbs, and notes of flowers, spice, and earth. Medium-light weight, with zippy acidity and a fresh finish, nice.
Liquid Farm 2013 Chardonnay, “White Hill,” Sta. Rita Hills. From Bentrock, Rita’s Crown, Zotovich, Kessler-Haak, Clos Pepe, Rancho Esperanza, and Radian vineyards, made in 90% neutral oak and 10% stainless steel. Very light straw color, with bright citrus fruit, touches of lees, earth, and spice. Medium-light bodied and lively, with a clean finish.
Liquid Farm 2012 Chardonnay, “Golden Slope,” Sta. Rita Hills. Tasted from a magnum. From Rita’s Crown, Bent Rock, Clos Pepe, Zotovich, and Kessler-Haak vineyards, made in 82% neutral and 18% new oak. Slightly deeper color, with more intense apple and pear aromas, spice, and a touch of vanilla/oak. Richer mouthfeel but with good balancing acidity, and a stony mineral note on the long finish, nice.
Liquid Farm 2013 Chardonnay, “Golden Slope,” Sta. Rita Hills (pre-release). Recently-bottled, sourced from a variety of Sta. Rita Hills vineyards, made in 82% neutral and 18% new oak. Light straw color, this was less fruit-forward, with lees, spice, and earth components more upfront and apply fruit and sweet oak in support. Medium weight on the palate with a lively texture and smooth finish – still very young and should develop well in the bottle.
Liquid Farm 2011 Chardonnay, “Four,” Sta. Rita Hills. From 75% Clos Pepe and 25% Rita’s Crown vineyards, made in 25% new oak. Medium-light yellow color, showing a more earthy character along with pear, spice, vanilla/oak, and a slightly nutty note. Richer, creamier texture, with a smooth finish.
Liquid Farm 2013 Chardonnay, “La Hermana,” Santa Maria Valley. From Bien Nacido, Dierberg, and Maldonado vineyards, made entirely in neutral oak. Fairly light color, showing a more citrus fruit profile, plus earth, fresh herbs, and a slightly floral touch. Medium-bodied and lively, with a stony mineral note on the long finish, nice.
Liquid Farm 2013 Chardonnay, “Bien Bien,” Bien Nacido Vineyard, Santa Maria Valley (pre-release). From 40-year old own-rooted vines at Bien Nacido Vineyard, made in about 30% new oak. Medium-light color, with more upfront vanilla/oak on the nose, ripe apple and pear fruit, and earth. Fairly rich and creamy on the palate, this had a citrusy and slightly chalky finish – very distinctive.
Other visits in this Grape-Nutz report – Paix Sur Terre and D’Alfonso-Curran:
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