Tempranillo has long been one of our favorite grape varieties, with wines from the likes of Lopez de Heredia, Alfredo Maestro, Vega Sicilia, and many others being among our most moving wine experiences. When the opportunity to work with Tempranillo from a truly great site came up in 2018, we jumped at the chance. Organically farmed by one of Cam's high school buddies, Matt Crist, C5 Vineyard (also known as Clover Creek) has a long track record for producing Tempranillo of distinction. It is just about a perfect site for the grape- warm, but not hot, up on a mesa in Santa Ynez, with sedimentary soils of sand and gravel. Cuttings were suitcased over from Tinto Pesquera, one of our favorite classic Ribera del Duero producers. This fruit had some of the ripest stems we'd ever seen, so we decided to ferment about a third of it whole-cluster, with the balance destemmed, all together in one concrete tank. We aged the majority in old French oak barrels, with about 1/5 in old American oak in homage to classic Rioja. The resulting wine has the freshness of modern California, with a depth, texture, and structure reminiscent of our Spanish inspirations. 

Unfined and Unfiltered. Total SO2 addition: 10 ppm (solely for bottling)

100% Tempranillo, C5 Vineyard

30% whole cluster

Fermentation in concrete, aging in neutral oak (80% French, 20% American)

Organically farmed