2010 Sandlands Tom Delbarba Vineyard
This is our second Sandlands; we made the first and last one in 2005. It is very exciting finally to release another wine from the amazing sands of the San Joaquin delta. There is no place like this in the world—among several amazing properties is the shear concentration of very old vines, many of them farmed forever without irrigation or herbicides. The forty-feet of crystalline sand make such modern adjuvants unneccessary.
This wine comes from Carignane vines farmed by Tom Delbarba. The vines descend a soft slope, bordered by Mataro and Zinfandel on the west. They are huge and somewhat haphazard in their demeanor. The fruit ripens early, with a high-degree of acidity. This was the second vineyard that we harvested in 2010, ahead of every white vineyard.Carignane flourishes under these conditions; the wine is iron-bloody, and for all its ripeness, nearly severe. It is a wine of structure and reticence, not fruit and richness. This wine represents a single reserve barrel from the two that we made; I am happy to say that Tom will triple our harvest (to 3 tons) in 2012.
22 cases produced