Founded in 2023 by two winemaking friends who worked together at the Iconic Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello Winery under Paul Draper. They have combined their disciplined winemaking skills to produce high quality wines from distinctive vineyard sites. With Deauratus, they control every aspect of the production from vineyard to bottle, making small lots and are 100% hands-on winemakers. With Deauratus, Shun and Eric have independence to select the vineyard and varietals they prefer to work with, chasing the sun and rain of the growing season to locations that have optimal weather for the vintage. Seeking out temperate climates, with fog influence, limestone, mountainous terrains, and gravelly subsoils-our objective is to produce wines with profound complexity and vineyard character. This is keeping in the style of wines that we fell in love with while working at Ridge.
<<A golden egg* has appeared in the wine world. Or, perhaps more accurately, it’s already pure gold. The new brand that recently debuted on the market is driven by a duo of master winemakers. Like modern-day alchemists, the grapes they touch transform into liquid gold, much like the biblical miracle of turning water into wine. The winery’s name, Deauratus, is Latin for “gilded” or “golden”.>>
Highlights of the Denver tasting group’s notes - thanks Michael Kane:
Deauratus
(Excited by pedigree).
Chardonnay: Light golden color. The nose is expressive with pacific flowers and
pineapple, tropical fruit, creamsicle. The palate is a classically styled central Californian
chardonnay with supporting acidity and energy with a smooth, mineral finish. This is an
amazing QPR at $40.
Grenache Blanc: This was an electric roller coaster of a wine with waves of poached
Asian pear and stone fruit with a little oak spice. Peach brandy was tossed out
there. Nice acidity throughout and energetic finish, a very unique wine. A wine you
want to showcase. Another great QPR. Fun, unique wine that would be a very
interesting WB day deal.
Zinfandel: This has a complex nose of green herbs, red and blue fruit, and hint of
something toasty like brown butter or graham cracker. The palate is rich with nice
acidity and lower tannins, medium alcohol. This is good, def better with food.
Cabernet Sauvignon: This is a powerful wine with a strong sense of rich dark fruit,
green pepper, and seamless American oak. There is nice acidity but less structure than
I was expediting. It is light and drinking very well right now. Consume within 10 years.
Excellent QPR. Consistently everyone assumed this would be closer to $80-$100. A
nice surprise that doesn’t happen often.
Disclosure: these wines were provided at no cost to the reviewer.
Thank you for your order, Laree. Shun and I really appreciate the support. The ‘23 Jillian Rose Vineyard Cabernet has been a hit with a lot of buyers out here in CA, Japan, and UK. It reminds me a lot of the Klein Vineyard Cabernet that I made at Ridge, coming from the lowest elevation parcel on Monte Bello. There’s limestone and forest surrounding the Jillian Rose Vineyard just like at Monte Bello. I also used Kentucky oak bourbon style barrels in making this wine, the preferred barrels in the Monte Bello cellar. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Thanks for your order, John. It’s an excellent cabernet, from a challenging vintage. Fortunately, all my years of working with difficult climate for ripening cabernet at Monte Bello helped guide me with our inaugural vintage at Deauratus. What I always loved about Paso Robles growing conditions, was that the wines were always the best on those colder, wet years like 2023. Now, for 2024 we went north to Mount Veeder. Just tasted the wine from barrel with the vineyard owner who came to visit me today at the winery. ‘24 is stunning.
Friday’s are typically my wine days at the winery, working on the barrels. Today, Shun and I hosted the vineyard owner for our Mount Veeder Cabernet. We tasted through every wine I’ve got in barrel. It was like going into a black hole, losing time, tasting and talking about all things farming, winemaking, what makes one vintage different from another. It was very clear that 2024’s taste like an “even” year-fruit forward, appealing, plush, velvety, and the 2025’s “odd”-being darker, structured, serious and ageable. It’s been my greatest joy to taste these wines at an early stage, see how they transform in barrel and bottle age. I recently opened a 2002 Ridge syrah/grenache blend at home, since I have a 2024 mirroring the same concept of a 50/50 co-ferment, and it was still young and powerful. It gives me hope that our 2024 will age as gracefully. The vineyard sourcing for our 2024 is different, perhaps even better, since we have limestone and a mountain terrain to work with. Also, the vineyard owner is good friends with some top growers in the Rhone and sourced some vines outside the commercial realm. It’s special fruit and made excellent wine. We bottle it next month and will preview at the next Rhone Rangers event in Paso Robles this coming March 2026.
I just realized I should also explain what I do the rest of the week, as my life isn’t entirely centered around wine as it once was during my time at Ridge. I now work as a scientist, having actually studied biochemistry and molecular biology at University of California, Santa Cruz. Since leaving Napa and returning to live in Aptos, CA (Santa Cruz area) I have been working in the world of environmental health, analyzing watersheds and the ocean for many different things linked around pollution. There is still so much to understand in this area of science. I recently have been doing a great deal of DNA/RNA extractions and then PCR to coax out genetic footprints for presence of dogs, cows, birds, and humans when looking at microbial contaminants in water. This gives us some idea of how much a watershed is impacted by wild life versus humans. I was also doing a lot of this type of work at Ridge, when looking for spoilage microorganisms in the cellar. They leave their DNA signature behind and with that I could pinpoint hotspots in the cellar to pay extra attention to so that the wines would be safely aged without spoilage. Now, I’m doing similar work but using the most-state of the art technology (German robotic instrumentation and digital PCR.) That’s just one aspect of the science I am working on. The other is analytical chemistry and high-performance liquid chromatography. It’s also very high-tech analysis. That work definitely is mentally strenuous and disciplined. It’s really made me a much better scientist now and much more interested in not using technology in the making of Deauratus wines. I love the idea that great wine can be made without the trickery and additives. Just start with good grapes from special terroir and don’t mess it up. It’s all about paying attention and taking care of your barrels throughout their time in the cellar. Wine that has been attended to properly will show much better in the bottle.
On this Wine Berserker’s Day celebration, I think its the perfect time to open up something special from the cellar going back in time to my early vintages at Ridge. We’re having some unbelievably (and unseasonably) warm weather in California that’s perfect for firing up the outside grill this evening and find those rare older vintages to open, decant, and consume. In all the chaos of daily life, a barbecue with good wine, helps bring peace and serenity to the soul, hanging with my family and the dogs. It’s usually a good time, but today should be that special celebration of wine appreciation since so much of our life was built around the hard work of making wine at Ridge. Maybe a magnum of 1997 Monte Bello…1995 Geyserville and Lytton Springs. We’ll see what is the easiest to get to.
I have also been opening a lot of Deauratus to share with family and friends. The 23’s and 24’s are showing well and with great potential for the future. They were built for aging, but have the finesse to drink now. It’s a careful balance that you have to get right in the fermentor when deciding the final pump-overs for tannin extraction.
Bought six bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon from Jillian Rose Vineyard and six bottles of Chardonnay from Gali Vineyard . Looking forward to receiving them
