My last bottle of this vintage. Awesome wines from this young couple, Tobe and Dylan Sheldon. Homeless wine-makers, they spend their time searching out unique vineyards and then pleading with owners to let them have some juice. True ‘garagiste’ wine making. They aren’t tainted with the ‘let’s create a wine for the masses’. This wine was absolutely pure, fresh, complex and full of character. Still ‘light’, it’s a wine that develops in your mouth. First sip, could be a really good gamay, maybe a pinot, then into the mid-palate definitely bordering on grenache with a hint of syrah. Actually it’s an obscure little grape called Graciano. More common as a blend in expensive Rioja’s, the wine has the ability to age for decades, gracefully.
Color of the wine is amethyst and crimson. Lovely sheen on the surface. Taste is all ripe cherry, cedar, hints of allspice, touch of mint and burnt pastry (the really good bits of the pastry pie – you know, the bits on the edge that crisp up and taste like butter and toasted brioche). This wine is really, really good. No messing about – it will drink now (and did) but can stay behind for at least 10-15 years, at which point I suspect it will taste like a $500 Priorat.
Tobe and Dylan Sheldon only made 4 barrels of this stuff – that’s less than 100 cases, 1,200 bottles – peanuts. If you don’t buy it immediately too late. Wait ’till next year. If they make it again – all depends on who owns the vineyards and what they plan to do with them. Some wine-farmers just want 15 tonnes per acre, and a Lear Jet – others are OK with leasing land to Tobe and watching her harvest maybe a 1/2 tonne per acre – if they were clever they took their rent in wine.
- Producer: Sheldon Winery
- Vintage: 2009
- Varietal: Graciano
- Country: USA
- Region: Lodi
- Production: Miniscule
- Availability: Sold Out. Waiting for the 2010 vintage
Order: Ordering is simple. Click on the e-mail link below and tell me how many bottles you think you may want. We’ll figure out the rest from there and reply to your e-mail within 1 day.
