This is a remarkable wine, made from old vines planted at the Galleano home ranch for the production of California Port.

The vineyard dates from about 1912. There is a large section planted to MIssion and mixed whites, including Muscat and Palomino-- for Sherry. The rest of the vineyard is mostly Alicante Bousquet, for the Port. It also has a planting of about 100 Salvador vines, a very rare and obscure hybrid vinifera grape, bred in Texas in the late 1900s specifically for California port. It is inky black, but holds acidity as it ripens, even in warm weather. It is also very tannic-- at least the old vines in this tough vineyard are. The wine from Salvador has a wonderful aroma that is very savory and even somewhat feral, all while being clean and precise.

To make this wine, we harvested all of the Salvador and there was not very much. Domenic was impressed by our hard work on a hot day, and offered us some Alicante to bolster our harvest. I jumped at the opportunity to make a wine that represented the whole vineyard, and even picked a little Palomino to coferment.

The result is a very powerful wine; black in color and witchy in aroma. There is truly nothing like it.