2010 Chrome, La Vista Vineyard $28.00 Buy Now
77% Grenache Blanc and 23% Viognier, from La Vista Vineyard in Paso Robles. The centerpiece of this wine – the dominant variety in the blend – is Grenache Blanc, which I’ve long touted as my favorite white wine variety. By itself, Grenache Blanc has a limited amount of fruit character, but expresses its terroir with charm and aplomb. To fill what I perceived as gaps in the texture of the wine, I used Viognier from the same vineyard that had been fermented on its skins. This component lends a plush viscosity and a mouth-watering grip to the wine, while the ripe and honeyed floral notes of the Viognier beautifully round out the lean and seamless structure of the Grenache Blanc. It was a blend that asked to be made.

2010 Viognier, La Vista Vineyard $28.00 Buy Now
Viognier can be an elusive creature. Its characteristic floral aroma can sometimes be overblown, and its fleshy, rich mouthfeel can, from the wrong vineyard or in the wrong hands, become bitter and downright heavy. Still, I fell in love with Viognier when I was making it for Edward Sellers, and I knew I could make a fantastic rendition if I could find a site that provided enough heat to ripen it to honeyed perfection, while at the same time allowing it to maintain the acidity and freshness that come from cool nights and thoughtful canopy management. I found that site at the beautiful Westside Paso Robles vineyard called La Vista. With its steep, south-facing hillside and crumbly calcareous sandstone soils, I knew that fruit from this vineyard would have the exact profile I needed. The wine would be great - but how to make it interesting? I wanted to show off the magnificent terroir, but I still wanted the freedom to blend. So I used three very old techniques borrowed from Condrieu: One third of the fruit was destemmed and fermented on its skins, much like a red wine, then pressed and aged in neutral oak barrels. One third was whole-cluster pressed directly to neutral oak barrels and fermented with native yeast. And the final third was whole-cluster pressed directly to a concrete pyramid that resembles a Martian ship, and fermented and aged there. Texture. Layers. Intense aromatics. Minerality. Brightness. Richness. And apparently, SpongeBob liked it.

2009 Carignan, Colombini Vineyard $28.00 Buy Now
Hailing from a low-yielding site in Redwood Valley, the grapes that made this wine have been grown as a labor of love now by three generations of the Colombini family. In this vineyard, the clusters hang from vines that easily stand up to Carignan’s reputation as a wild and uncivilized variety. How could I not be in love? Trying to tame this beast would surely be a mistake. I put aside all my elegant habits and fermented half of this lot on its stems, stomping around in the fermenter for days, trying to make enough juice to punch it down. Needless to say, it’s concentrated. I pressed it straight into barrels, dividing it between old, neutral barrels and new, Spanish-coopered American oak. The wine is tannic, acidic, tightly wound, and above all, unique. I love the way the oak shows itself with smoky toast. I love the old-world texture and the way that texture underscores the wine’s explosive and unapologetic California fruitiness. I love its rough edges and its big heart.