January 2024 Wine Club
WINES
Wine Club Selections, January 2024
• Sandhi, Sta. Rita Hills Chardonnay 2021 (Santa Barbara County, California)
• Domaine de la Côte, ‘Blooms Field’ Pinot Noir 2019 (Sta. Rita Hills, Santa Barbara County, California)
The two wines featured in this month’s wine club are the result of my recent visit to Santa Barbara County, where I was visiting with some of the top producers and wineries in the area and learning more about this extraordinary wine region. My trip focused on the wines of the Sta. Rita Hills, just over 30 minutes from Santa Barbara. This is a magical place with a climate, terroir, and energy that is truly unique in the American viticultural landscape. I have read about the ‘transverse mountains’ (mountain ranges that run West-East instead of North-South) that define the general geography here, but standing on the high elevation vineyards here and feeling the cold breeze blowing through the corridor from the Pacific Ocean just 7-10 miles away really drives home both the challenges and the excitement of winemaking here.
These two wines are made by the same team of extraordinary winemakers and human beings: Sashi Moorman and Rajat Parr. Together, they have become a true force in the winemaking industry, working hard on regenerative farming practices, and producing American wines that truly speak to terroir. Sashi is a classic winemaker who works on a number of projects, both with Raj and with other companies, that all have his stamp of authentic, honest, and precise winemaking. Raj was previously one of the world’s great sommeliers with a reputation as one of the best blind tasters anyone has ever seen. Together, they purchased the Domaine de la Côte Estate on the far western edge of the Sta. Rita Hills in 2013, after Sashi planted the vineyards in 2007 to select California heritage clones of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. This vineyard area of just 40 acres sits on top of diatomaceous earth and silex that were formerly seabeds. This kind of soil provides distinct minerality to the wines here, and is different from the mostly sandy soils that cover Santa Barbara County and the Sta. Rita Hills. The diatomaceous earth pops in and out of very select vineyards and offers an immediate sensation on tasting. It is so cool here, that the temperature during the growing season for the 2023 vintage never got above 75ºF! The Sta. Rita Hills are fascinating in that for every one mile you progress inland (to the East), the high temperature rises 1º F. As the AVA itself is some 20 miles long from West-East, this results in vineyards with extraordinary climatic differences. Many of the vineyards on the far East edges will grow grapes ranging from Syrah and Grenache to traditional Bordeaux varietals like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc as opposed to the Eastern sites that focus primarily on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
I fell in love with the energy of the wines here. They are bright, expressive, and have tremendous emotion behind them. I was able to visit and test at nearly a dozen estates, and the overall quality is extraordinary. That said, the wines of Domaine de la Côte are truly on another level and are some of the great wines made in the United States.
Sandhi, Sta. Rita Hills Chardonnay 2021
(Santa Barbara County, California)
100% Chardonnay
Drink: Now-2028
Serving temperature: 50º-55º
Food pairings: Fish, oysters, mussels, roast chicken, sautéed mushrooms, cheese, roast pork, salads
Domaine de la Côte, ‘Bloom’s Field’ Pinot Noir 2021
(Sta. Rita Hills, Santa Barbara County, California)
100% Pinot Noir
‘Bloom’s Field’ is one of the 6 single vineyards that make up the Domaine de la Côte property. It came to ‘fame’ through the 2014 film Somm III which created a blind tasting event pitting Pinot Noir from New World countries (USA, Australia, etc) agains classic Burgundian Pinots. The tasting panel selected the 2014 vintage of Bloom’s Field as the best of the best, tying for to marks with one of Burgundy’s most classic producers, Marquis d’Angerville. While this doesn’t mean it is the ‘best’ Pinot Noir in the world, what the film confirmed was that delicious, pure, and elevated Pinot Noir was being produced outside of the grape’s original home. Production here is miniscule with just 650 cases produced from this vineyard. The grapes undergo whole cluster fermentation and the wine is aged for 12 months in 30% new French oak. It is tremendous in every way and will absolutely improve with several more years in the bottle.
Drink: 2028-2035
Serving temperature: 54º-58º
Food pairings: Grilled or roasted meats, sauces with red fruit, Tandoori chicken, Salmon/Halibut, Sushi, Wild Mushrooms
