Last week was another long week! It was my fourth week working during harvest at Alma Rosa. The first week was calm and chill, just learning and only working 8 hours a day (what a time!) This past week, I worked almost 72 hours over six days, averaging about 12 hours a day. Needless to say, I’m exhausted. However, I’m getting used to it to the point that on my one day off, I had the energy to visit TWO other wineries and do some tasting. That’s what I’m going to focus on today.
Melville
I went on this adventure with the other intern I work with and his girlfriend. We were debating between visiting the town of Los Olivos and doing some tastings there, but had trouble getting reservations (it’s a popular area) and decided it would be cool to visit some estates. We were able to make a reservation for noon at Melville, so we made that our first stop. The estate there is beautiful. The winery is contained in the building that usually hosts the tasting room as well, and is surrounded by the vineyards of the estate. The house itself has ivy growing along the walls and is surrounded by olive trees. We sat outside (of course) on a picnic bench in the shade next to a lawn scattered with a couple Adirondack chairs overlooking the vineyard. Very picturesque (here’s a picture to prove it, with more to follow).
Melville’s focus is on giving a lot of attention to the grapes, putting in the effort there and then doing minimal additions once in the winery. I actually met someone who was interning at Melville for the harvest (just like me at Alma Rosa) who emphasized the winemaker’s focus on the viticulture aspect of winemaking. On Melville’s website, you can read that “At the time of harvest, we consider the wines to already be made and strive not to interfere with their natural path.” I think this shone through in tasting the wines, as they all had a similar minerality, highlighting the sandy soil in which most of the vines are grown.
As with many tasting lists you’ll find in the Santa Rita hills/Santa Barbara County area, this one started off with a Chardonnay, featured a few Pinot Noirs, and ended with a Syrah. The Chardonnay was an acidic, citrusy one that had not gone through malolactic fermentation and was aged in neutral oak barrels (15-20 years old). This Chardonnay had none of the oaky or creamy notes that can be so divisive. Although I do enjoy a creamier Chardonnay, I also enjoy a citrusy Chardonnay like this one if it’s placed in front of me. Basically, I will not say no to Chardonnay. This one in particular had notes of lemon on both the nose and palate, as well as distinct notes of saltiness. The sea breeze blowing over Lompoc hits the west side of the vineyard contributing to this saltiness.
The next wine was the first of the Pinot Noirs – the 2017 Estate Pinot Noir. This wine is Melville’s flagship wine. It was a translucent garnet color, with aromas of raspberry and red fruits. It was light bodied, with the 40% whole cluster giving it some tannin and complexity. I now know from my own time in wine production that whole cluster means the entire cluster of grapes is put into whatever fermentation vessel is being used, stem and all. The non-whole cluster percentage is made up of grapes that are destemmed and crushed. It also had medium acidity and was overall light and easy to drink.
The next wine was the 2018 Estate Pinot Noir made from Sandy’s block. Sandy’s block of grapes was named after Ron Melville’s sister Sandy. It’s also a sandy block! This wine was a little darker than the last, a brick red but still translucent. It also had aromas of red fruit and a slight saltiness. This wine was made using 50% whole cluster, lending it slightly more body. This wine also had a nice finish.
The last Pinot Noir was 67% whole cluster! That’s a lot of whole clusters. As a result, this wine was the heaviest of all the Pinots in body, but still relatively light for what a Pinot Noir can be. Overall, these showcased the fruit that is produced in the vineyard and the differences in whole cluster use but were otherwise somewhat similar in style.
Next, we tasted two Syrahs. Syrah has really been growing on me since I moved down here. This particular Syrah was made with 40% whole cluster (Melville really emphasizes the amount of whole cluster used in each wine!) This Syrah had a really nice aroma of herbs and spices, like lavender and cloves. It had medium body and medium acid. The second Syrah was an extra taste (it pays to be ~in the industry~). This was my favorite of all the tastes at Melville. It was grown in a high-density area of the vineyard, where the vines are planted only three feet apart. This forces the vines to compete for resources, resulting in fruit with high concentrations of flavor. I tasted notes of blackberry and other dark fruit. Again, this was my favorite, but I did not buy any wines today. For $50 a bottle, it’s gotta be a really good one.
Babcock
I won’t go into quite as much detail on the Babcock wines. It wasn’t a true tasting; apparently they don’t do tasting flights on the weekends (their website is misleading, it just says first come, first served). Again, it pays to be ~in the industry~ because when we told the server we were looking for a tasting and that we worked at Alma Rosa, she said, oh well I can bring you a few to taste and did a bit of an impromptu tasting for us. There were a lot of other people there so we didn’t hear as much about each wine. They all have fun names though: two of the Grenaches were “Love Among the Ruins” and “Opportunity Knocks.”
Although we didn’t hear much about each wine we tried, we found out that one of the winemakers was sitting at a table nearby, so we started chatting about how harvest was going. They have a cool outdoor production facility and we could see a destemmer and a few presses hanging out. Apparently, the owner is a big believer in reforestation and so has cleared some of the vines with plans to plant oak and maybe build up a monarch population. Overall, it was a cool place with a fun atmosphere and I’m glad we visited.
These are just two of the multitude of wineries in Santa Barbara County. Just outside the Alma Rosa Cellar there are at least 8 tasting rooms to visit (of course I never can while I’m working). The nearby town of Los Olivos apparently has 50+ tasting rooms to visit, so I’ve got my work cut out for me!