100% Vermentino. In our home we mostly eat a Mediterranean diet, with lots of fish, olives, nuts, sauteed greens or grilled summer veggies like eggplant and zucchini, and we are always craving dry and salty white wines to wash down all of that healthy seasonal food. This Vermentino will make you feel the salt spray of the ocean, refreshing and lip-smacking.

Mediterranean white varietal wines can exhibit a textural contrast between zesty acidity and broad mineral texture that stands up to intensely flavored vegetable like grilled tomatoes or wood oven fish. Weight without heaviness in a white wine. Our Vermentino has oodles of texture from the shale soil, along with ripping acidity from the cool Carneros climate. That interplay is what makes a white wine like this so compelling.

To preserve the fresh and crunchy character and keep the alcohol moderate, the grapes were harvested on the early side, while they still had beautiful natural acidity and before the potential alcohol was too high. We then split the grape bunches into two fermentation lots. The riper portion of the vineyard was fermented on the skins in a tank, to pick up all the gorgeous texture and minerality of an orange wine. The less ripe portion of the vineyard went direct to press and was pressed whole cluster like Champagne. The juice from this second lot was fermented in neutral barrels. We then blended the lots to taste to achieve the best of both worlds — bright acidity and textured depth.

Besides the gorgeous texture, you will find richer fruit flavors like dates or figs, even papaya, along with lifting herbal notes such as tarragon or chervil. All of this is carried by a broad powerful expression of Vermentino.

If you love salty seafood whites, this is your wine.

Only native yeasts were used in the fermentation. The pH is 3.34, the TA is 7.72 g/l, and the alcohol is 13.0%. 497 cases produced.