We are bottling as I write this. It is going well, very well.

Before then, I traveled east, across the sea, with Alex Kongsgaard, to show our wines in Scandinavia. My excitement is divided between the release of these wonderful wines and this exotic adventure. There is something so wonderful and rather unbelievable about making wines in California and finding people in Europe, so close to the origin and center of gravity of all wine, interested in what we do. We are not over-proud, but we believe that these wines merit their interest. And yours.

This is our first vintage of this wine. And we are so proud and excited to have had the chance to make it—Chenin Blanc from Tegan Passalacqua's vineyard in the quartz-sands of the Mokelumne in Lodi. These are the old Pinot Grigio vines that he grafted over; and we are among the very few winemakers to whom he has entrusted his grapes. The wine is ethereally light—lacy and delicate, with piercing acidity. Another wine that is a complete and stunning revelation of the potential of Lodi for high-acid white wines.

This vintage is utterly light—nearly white wine--, delicately fragrant, with an excellent acid structure. From 180 year-old own-rooted Cinsault, growing in the center of Lodi. Another element in the revelation.

This is our second vintage of this wine, and, as alway, we are learning with every step. This year, the wine is quite light in body and a kind of bright, translucent, cherry red in color. It is deliciously fresh and fragrant—everything is about what happens quickly and up front in this vintage. Close your eyes; it is white wine. Another white wine from Lodi: made from own-rooted, 100 year old Zinfandel in the north-eastern Lodi town of Clements.

We feel that we have found the most surprising Grand Cru site. Again, in Lodi—but in a very different geology, with very different results from Bechtold, Stampede and Kirschenmann. Vista Luna has very rocky soils, on moderately sloping hillides, deposited not by the Mokelumne, but by glaciers, flowing west from the Sierras. The wine is much more muscular than the first three above, with a kind of bass-driven, granular structure. Verdelho.

This wine is amazing. It was still fermenting and rather sweet and unpalatable in January 2017 when we started planning the Spring 2017 bottling. We did not include it. Thus we did not plan to offer it to you, certainly not in the Spring offer.

And then, in the lead up to bottling, Alex said: even if we are not going to bottle it, maybe we should filter it? We will have the filter set up anyway, and we want to do whatever we can to prevent malo … Even at this late stage. So we tasted the wine. Around April 13. And it was dry. And stunning. I think our best LSB yet. So powerful, complex—and utterly fresh, in spite of 20 months in barrel. A wonder.

100% Sauvignon Blanc from a rocky hillside on Sonoma Mountain; 100% barrel-fermented and aged in neutral wood and stainless; made from juice only.

This is our first and likely only vintage of this wine: it is a special fermentation that we made in 2014 to be part of the Gardens of Babylon blend, but it proved so good that we kept it out, and carefully aged it for an additional 6 months in barrel before bottling. Various bits and pieces of other wines go into the Gardens blend, but this wine is Tenbrink alone: about 50% Petite Sirah farmed by Steve on the Jones Ranch, and 50% Wolfskill Cabernet, also farmed by him. The fruit was harvested from the two vineyards within about 5 days of each other, and all of it was fermented together in a single wooden fermenter (we call them "Radoux," for the name of the cooperage that made them), with long, slow, gentle extraction over about a month. Think of it as a Reserve Gardens: more pure, more elevated aromatics, more precise structure. We are bottling 22 cases, just for the mailing list.

An absolutely beautiful version of this wine: after several years wandering in an over-ripe wilderness, we are making stunning versions year after year. The drought is our ally here; but we have also learned some lessons. Deep, dark, intense and precisely structured Petite Sirah from a sandy, rocky vineyard in Suisun Valley. All of the power of the wine is balanced by lightness and grace. there is no heaviness; just soaring.

A 100% Cabernet in a very old-school California style. Grown on a hillside of sandy, iron-rich soil, with the foliage allowed to fall in a classic sprawl. The wine is dense but light on its feet; rich and ripe but with no jammminess or cooked fruit. Instead, it has a core of savoriness and herbality.

Our last vintage of this very special wine, and the best version that we have ever made. After a dozen years of working with the amazing grower Lee Hudson, I have relinquished our rows to concentrate on other wines. This is a reserve based on about 100 plants in the vineyard that produces Androkteinos. The winemaking is the same except that Golgotha spends an extra 6-12 months in barrel. This allows the much more sharp and intense tannins in the wine to blossom and soften. The wine is rich and powerful like the Bablyon, but somewhat less dense, lighter and more like a dancer on the palate.

This is a truly remarkable wine, strange and delicious. In a certain sense, the wine originates more in the winery than in the vineyard—but not because of our actions. Because of the yeast. The wine is old-vine Chardonnay, from Bald Mountain, grown at nearly 2000 feet, on Mt. Veeder, towering above them Napa and Sonoma valleys. We harvested the wine at a potential alcohol of about 15% in 2013, but the wine simply stopped fermenting in December after harvest. It stopped with about 2% residual sugar, which is not surprising for us—but never started again, whereas all of its other sluggish classmates have finished and are bottled. We waited at first for it to start again, and then w simply began waiting for it to develop into something new and unforeseen. It has aged slowly and graciously; evolving into something complex, deep, and intricate, that shows no ties to Chardonnay. On the other hand, the wine is so strong, it shows no oxidation, and only the subtle signs of aging. We really are now sure how to serve this wine. It is a little sweet, but it it is hard to think of it as dessert wine. for sure with foie gras, with classical lobster dishes, with rich cheeses …

You may order these wines here