Just received the inaugural mailer from this new Central Coast producer, which came highly recommended by Justin Smith of Saxum…I’m already well beyond my budgeted spend for the year, but this seems like an interesting ground floor project at $55/bottle. Anyone have any insider info, or happen to have somehow sampled this in barrel/bottle yet?
See below:
In 2011, our family purchased a tiny piece of property high up in the Santa Lucia Range of the historic, rugged, and almost forgotten York Mountain AVA. After planting our first vines in 2013 — own-rooted, bushvine Grenache — we started to discover the uniqueness of this incredible site. 1800 feet above the Pacific Ocean between the towns of Cambria and Templeton, our little vineyard boasts an incredibly diverse set of soil profiles, including rocky limestone, clay, and sand. Rainfall is almost 4-times that of the nearby town of Paso Robles, which allows us to dry farm many of our young vines.
The extreme weather, diverse soils, and steep topography create unforgiving farming conditions and minuscule yields – but for all that we’re rewarded with incredibly intense and character driven fruit. We showcase the uniqueness of our vineyard by being as gentle and transparent as we can in the winery – co-fermenting when possible, lots of whole bunch fermentations, native yeast, and a mix of concrete and large format neutral oak aging.
Today we have 7-acres planted to a mix of Grenache, Graciano, Syrah, and Clairette. From that, we only make one wine – a blend of everything that we grow – which is our way of allowing the vineyard to speak louder than the winemaking. We don’t make very much wine (just 136 cases last year), and never will, but what we do make is unique, powerful and elegant.
We call our vineyard The Royal Nonesuch Farm, in reference to the great “tragedy” of Huckleberry Finn and as a constant reminder to never take ourselves too seriously.
The 2016 vintage of the Royal Nonesuch Farm is a co-ferment of 50% Syrah, 30% Graciano and 20% Grenache. Yields in 2016 really were minuscule — the first three producing acres gave us a mere half a ton per acre.
Despite not having much fruit to work with, we did 2 harvests in 2016 - first was all of our Syrah with a little Grenache, then about 3 weeks later, the Graciano with the last of the Grenache. We co-fermented both picks in a concrete tank before racking them together at the end of harvest. We then aged the wine for 22-months in used 500L barrels.
2016 Royal Nonesuch Farm
This elegant wine offers up an intoxicating nose of crushed violets, peppercorns, blackberries, and seared ribeye. Flavors of blueberries, black licorice, and espresso give way to a full-bodied, seamless, and gorgeously textured mid-palate. This is a wine of great complexity and power, but also of purity and nuance — and while it is drinking wonderfully now, it will benefit from a few years in your cellar.
Again, if you’re interested in a 6-pack you can join our club here. If you only want a few bottles, stay tuned for next Tuesday’s announcement.
Thank you for joining us on this adventure!
Hillary, Anthony, and all the critters