2021 Lopez Vineyard - Red
Vineyard: Lopez Vineyard, Fontana, Cucamonga Valley AVA, San Bernardino County.
Planted: 1912-1918
Special thanks: Dom Galleano
Viticulture: Certified organic, dry-farmed, no spray.
Ingredients: grapes, sulfites
Whole cluster indigenous fermentation, pressed when dry, aged in used barrels approx 12 months.
This is the wine that made us fall in love with Lopez. Lopez Vineyard is certified organic, never sprayed, never watered (dry-farmed), and over 100 years old. It also happens to be the nearest certified organic vineyard to Crenshaw Cru, just about 50 miles away. It is a really special legacy vineyard that is part of this history of this area, and we are fortunate and extremely grateful to be able to be part of this history.
As an ecological winery our highest aspiration is for all of our wine to come from fruit that doesn’t need to be sprayed with anything, nor watered, in order to survive and thrive. The only kind of permanently sustainable agriculture is that which requires no inputs other than human intelligence and labor and the resources that nature provides. Lopez Vineyard meets these criteria (as do the prickly pears we forage), and that puts it in an extremely small number of vineyards on this planet for which this is true. In this sense it is an example of both what is possible and how far we have to go. Can you tell we’re excited by this vineyard?
It rained approximated 5 inches in the 2021 vintage that grew these grapes. Given our respect for the vineyard, we tried to make as pure an expression of it as we could with the wine. Therefore we simply fermented the whole clusters of grapes dry (with native/ambient/indigenous yeast as always), pressed, settled the wine for a year in two barrels, then bottled with a little sulfur.
This wine is for you big red lovers. It is rich and complex, with tannic grip that will enable it to age, and lovely lifting acidity that brightens it and keeps it well away from becoming ponderous. Imagine an incredible vintage Port if it was dry, crossed with Napa Cab.