Pretty exciting - From today’s pre-release Ceritas email:
“We have long desired the opportunity to plant a vineyard for Ceritas, and the chance finally became available in 2023.
Across the street from Mariana’s sits another property owned by the Radonich family. The property has been bare land for decades. The Radonich family expressed their desire to plant something truly compelling here, and partnered with Ceritas and Ketan Mody of Beta to do it.
We all wanted to do something special here, and collectively, Ketan and I decided to plant Cabernet Sauvignon sur echalas. This style of planting is prohibitively expensive, labor intensive, and challenging. We knew the potential after tasting Cabernet from Ketan’s Jasud Estate, and so we began.
Sur echalas is most associated with the Northern Rhone, where the ridiculous slopes of Hermitage and Côte-Rôtie demand it to combat soil erosion. In a vineyard like Giuliana’s, this style of planting severely restricts the growth of the vines, allowing only a couple of clusters to grow on each plant. These clusters gain unfathomable concentration and intensity of flavor, yielding wines of profound complexity.
Grafting is set to begin using heritage clones of Cabernet Sauvignon in Spring of 2025. From there, it may be a decade or more before we can produce and bottle wine from the site. This site is incredibly exciting - there are few places in the world where Cabernet like this can be found.”