Mike makes wine. I make collages.
Sometimes we get a chance to bring our creative worlds together, and our collabs are always really fun. This time, it’s the very last case of Mike’s very first wine. For this special case, I created 12 original collages, making each bottle an original piece.
Different media, different processes, same creative passions. Seven of these bottles sold instantly, but these four, which happen to be my personal faves, are still available
What was coming out of these speakers by @devonojas was so expansive, so solid, so utterly free of the acoustic and electrical artifacts that are normally there to tell our hunter-gatherer brains, “this is a recording; these sounds aren’t really here.”
You don’t just hear instruments, you get a sense of the materials they’re made from and of musicians’ breath flowing through them. Flesh plucking strings, feet operating pedals, piano keys struck—all the artistry that goes into turning individual performance into a musical whole.
Before pandemic boredom led me to try building a tube amp kit (and WAY before I decided to attempt a whole DIY turntable), it never occurred to me that building these kinds of objects was something people could teach themselves how to do. But if you really want to understand how inspired I feel right now, I can honestly say it’s worth flying to SF to spend an hour or two in this room.
A contemplative glass to kick off one day of downtime before I get back to….
I want to say, Real Life?
That term doesn’t seem right. It’s all real life: Taking time to pursue passion, to challenge yourself, to experience new highs and lows, to learn and grow. Winemaking will definitely not be a one-and-done thing for me — I’ll be back at it sooner than later, the inaugural @altasuenos.wines vintage is still fermenting so I’ll head back up next weekend to press and barrel it down.
But the bigger lesson/hope regarding the experiences of this past month is that dedicating time to focus on one “different” thing might just sharpen the tools I use to get better at all the things.
One certainty: my palate got a lot stronger this month, and this glass pairs perfectly with the evening salt air I didn’t realize I was missing.
Today we took a drive all the way to the dead-end of Route 246 at Surf Beach, east of Lompoc, where the Purisima and Santa Rita Hills converge on either side of an estuary, across which a (maybe) 100-yard rail bridge divides the mouth of the Santa Ynez River and the Pacific Ocean. This somewhat lonely spot is basically the pointy end of the funnel formed by Santa Barbara County’s transverse mountain ranges, and standing there you really get a perspective on how cold ocean wind fog travels inland to create a perfect environment for cool-climate grape varietals like Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. True to the legend, the 63° temperature at the river’s mouth rose about a degree per mile until we reached Buellton, where it was nearly 85°.
In the last frame, a video taken a few weeks ago from the top of Colin’s block in Our Lady of Guadalupe Vineyard, showing the estuary from 10 or so miles inland.
Friends and family,
Today I’m stoked to introduce @altasuenos.wines .
This project has been in the works for several years (which many of you already know, due to the fact that I kinda can’t shut up about it) and to me it represents a passion, a desire to learn continually, a communion with nature, and an opportunity to study and participate in an awesome Californian tradition.
The aim is to make wine(s) like the ones I most like to drink: Mindfully and naturally produced. Expressive of humble but interesting terroirs. And most importantly, to be enjoyed with good food and good company.
(And if you’re wondering, the name translates roughly to Fly Dreams, with respect/apologies to a non-oenological Californian icon.)
I can’t wait to share more. More stories, a real website, allocations and futures sales are all in the works. But for now if you’d give @altasuenos.wines a follow, I’d truly appreciate it!
California Mission Grapes. Aka Pais, aka Criolla, aka the Los Angeles Grape, aka Listan Prieto. Grown near New Cuyama from cuttings taken on Santa Cruz Island. Once used by a few for sacrament, still viewed by some as a tool of oppression, at one point the engine of an industry, only to be decimated by prohibition – but ultimately a symbiotic survivor, adapting to its surroundings and indifferent to the machinations of humankind.
Look guys, all I’m saying is when you meet someone who likes to drink pet nat moscatel straight from the bottle while roaming the streets of Paris at midnight in a black leather jacket that makes her look like an absolute badass, YOU MARRY THAT PERSON.
Happy 10th @corinnecobabe
I met Abe Schoener about a year and a half ago. We talked for 5 minutes at most, but for me the exchange was indelible—thanks to the fact that Abe kindly poured one of the most memorable and enigmatic glasses of wine I’ve ever encountered.
Fast forward to last week, and an Instagram post from Abe about the calculated risk of deciding to prune the vineyard that wine came from in the middle of a driving winter storm. Three words crossed my mind: “Count me in.”
Wines made from Lone Wolf Vineyard have that thing winemakers call “tension.” They’re light, elegant, and yet they pack enough tannin to rip your face off. I’m no good at the poetic notes of the somms—there’s just something fierce and wild about these wines.
When you go to the vineyard, it makes perfect sense. There are no neat rows of trellises. Just knotty, multi-headed beasts surrounded by twisted thickets that lie nearly on the ground. It’s a small plot tucked in a quiet corner of the Pechanga tribal lands and the vines may be some of California’s oldest, but no one knows for sure. What’s certain is these plants went virtually untended for 50 years before Abe and his friend Raj Parr learned they existed. I’ve now played a tiny part in this vineyard’s history, and I’m extremely honored and reverent of the privilege.
Big thanks to @scholiumwines for inviting me into your world this weekend. Thanks as well to @rajatparr and @kaeleyweinberger for your patient guidance, to @steveandmisuk for the culinary master class, and to @thesommpour@varsha_v_r@herrmannyorkwine@mbkornegay@jeff_tenney@allison_badar@wine_dingroad and everyone on the crew for the warm welcome. The further I go down this rabbit hole, the more I’m amazed by wine’s power to connect, to inspire, to protect, preserve, and to make it okay to dance to “heart of glass” in the kitchen of an AirBnb with a bunch of people who were compete strangers only hours earlier. Cheers.
