This wine straight up makes my mouth water. It is wonderful lightly chilled or not chilled at all. It smells like red velvet. It is juicy and then juicy some more. Think raspberries, Juicy Juice from when I was a kid, ripe fig, red bean paste and milk chocolate with chili powder. It is a joy of a wine and makes me think of those marketing images where the winemaker is walking out with a roast chicken to a dinner party and everyone is beautiful and laughing and drinking wine that is being poured out of a pitcher. This is Pitcher Wine.
This wine was hand harvested on October 21 and fermented natively then aged in neutral French oak barrels for 10 months. It was bottled unfined and unfiltered, so vegan.
70 cases produced.
2021 Lumina Counoise
$38.00
“The Nolan Ranch is a newer-ish vineyard in Los Alamos, and actually we were doing a barrel tasting as a crew at Presqu’ile winery, and at the time they were doing custom crush for Railsback Freres who had gotten the first vintage of the Counoise off Nolan. They poured it for us and I just thought it was amazing. They said it was a really small block but they might have some left. So I reached out and managed to snag it. Actually, Desperada started buying Teraldego and Alicante Bouschet from there, Russell from Herman Story is buying from there, and Cameron from Ultima Tulie got some Petite Sirah from there as well. It is a newer vineyard but will be one that people will be hearing a lot about as it comes on line. It’s a lot of driving checking up on these vineyards. But it’s worth it if as long as I can work with vineyards that are farming in a way that I feel is sustainable.”