This is so exciting. We have not made any of these wines since 2019; some-- in a certain sense all of them-- we have never made before. Even the Prince comes from a new vineyard.
Our friend Tegan Passalacqua helped us to find a brilliant new vineyard to replace the Farina vineyard that we used for the Prince for 15 years-- we lost the vineyard when we could not make wine from it in the pandemic. He showed us a remarkable own-rooted Sauvignon Blanc vineyard at 2000 feet of altitude, in the Sierra Foothills. The Sauvignon is planted on granite talus, the rocky tailings of a 19th-century gold mine at the top of the hill. We knew the vineyard was good, mayb even great-- but could it make The Prince?
Yes. The wine is a wonderful successor to the old Prince, sharper and more defined, less richly powerful-- more restrained.
At the foundation of the Rebirth of Scholium, we want to make more Chardonnay. I drank a fantastic 2022 Chardonnay from the Ascona vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains in the Winter preceding harvest 2024, so we tried to source some of the same fruit and succeeded. The vineyard is very high up-- at 3000 feet, right off Skyline Drive. The wine that we made is very good-- we call it "In Cima"-- At The Peak. It is clean and classical, beautiful.
As we reconvene Scholium, we made one of our decades-long homages to the noble white wines of Collio in Friuli: a cofermentation of Sauvignon Blanc juice from the same vineyard as the Prince, and Ascona Chardonnay, the same vineyard as In Cima. It is strong, idiosyncratic, and a worthy successor to our many Friulano-admiring wines of 2000s. We call this wine "LSB Plus--" the same name that we called it in the cellar.
Lastly, we made a beautiful red wine from the terraced, hillside, vineyard next to the Sierra Sauvignon, also own-rooted. It is Barbera, planted in 1980, on scree and talus from the 19th Century gold mine above. Because of its particularly wild home soil, we call the wine "Land of Skree," from the old Norse word skriða-- landslide.
The wine is dark and intense, but still very graceful and poised. It is an utterly new chapter for us, more like soft and beautiful 1MN wines that we used to make from Bechtold (also lost in the pandemic), than like the tannic bruisers we made from Hudson and Tenbrink. I put together the final blend on Saturday October 12, and the wine was so good that I had to rename it. That also means new labels-- they will arrive around October 24 and so we will begin shipping the wines on October 27.
We made two more wines in 2024-- but neither of them have made the cut for this collection. One is good but needs more time in bottle before I release it. Let's say, it's on probation. The other one will not make it to bottle I think-- a fancy Pinot Noir from Chalone that took a hard left turn instead of finishing fermentation. It's still in barrel, so if you come to the winery you can taste it. A Champagne winemaker visited in the Spring and said it was good, but that it needed 3 years. We shall see.
in order to get us up to 6 bottles, I am including one 2023 from the Mt. Veeder Fantasia: the 2023 Mt. Veeder Chardonnay. It is superb, really special. There are only 72 bottles left.
Here is the complete list of wines that you will receive:
We are offering this collection at a 20% discount. 32 6-packs. Shipping on October 27.
