A few firsts for us in this release, all of which I'm very excited about.
For starters, this is our first time participating in Nouveau, the French tradition of making fresh wines from the most recent harvest. These wines are fresh, bright, juicy, and begging to be consumed on short order. Beaujolais Nouveau is typically centered around the Gamay grape, but in recent years California producers have gotten in on the trend and began experimenting with other varieties. You especially see this in the natural winemaking world, where these selections come from.
Alex Pomerantz of Subject to Change is a many-times collaborator and friend of mine. When we last released his wines (sparkling Sauvignon Blanc in January) he gave me a break on price in exchange for tennis lessons. I loved that wine, love the latest offerings, and am excited for you to try them.
We did Nouveau three ways with two different wines. The first is a Zinfandel from the Kazmet Vineyard in Mendocino's Redwood Valley. These are 1970's planted, head-trained, dry-farmed old school California Zinfandel wines. The Nouveau is bright, the wine was made naturally, and as a nouveau it shows pops with bright red fruit and a bit of bubblegum on the finish.
Across the road from Kazmet Vineyard is Upton Vineyard, where Alex sourced the Petite Sirah for our other varietal Nouveau. Not your conventional Nouveau grape, even by new-age California standards, I love how this has turned out. Where Petite Sirah in its youth can be all tannin and grit, this is subtle fruit with way less bitter than you'd expect from young Petite Sirah. Markedly different than the Zinfandel, the Petite Sirah on its own in this style is a fascinating representation of what this grape can be in the hands of a winemaker like Alex.
We blended each of the two varietals into a 50/50 blend for our third option, a lovely balance between the brightness of the Zin and the boldness of the Petite Sirah.
Also this month we're thrilled to be launching our first artist collaboration. Alex Maceda is a brilliant abstract artist based in Joshua Tree who I've known since high school. We went to different schools, but were each our school lead for a Red Cross-run designated driver program for high school in 2006-2007. We've stayed in touch through the years, and reconnected over Twitter during the Pandemic as I saw she had relocated from San Francisco to the Desert to pursue art full-time after leaving the tech world.
We are featuring her paintings WATER MEDITATION I (Zinfandel), SUNSET AND A SUMMER MONSOON (Petite Sirah) and AIR SIGNS (50/50 Blend) on our labels this month. Information on Alex's work and the collaboration can be found in your box this month, and her website can be found here. She has kindly offered our community 10% off all work on her site through the end of the year, if you're in the art-buying market :)