2021 Lina's Petit Verdot

Tasting Notes: 

Lina is having a garden party. Her friends have darted north to Monterey Bay to picnic on the beach. Chilling bottles of her Petit Verdot for the people coming to her backyard luncheon, she laughs, thinking about how frigid the air is in Monterey. Not in southern Monterey in Hames Valley, where Lina's Petit Verdot grows. "Living well is living warmly," she says to herself. Much like this single-vineyard red, which will wrap your senses in a warm blanket of baking spices, red and black-toned fruits, nuanced by violets, lavender, and sage, all of which Lina grows in her garden.

Appellation Notes: Hames Valley, Monterey County AVA

You will not see any questions about the small east-west-oriented Hames Valley on any exam about wine. Why? It’s pretty tiny. Sandwiched between the southern tip of the Monterey AVA and the San Antonio AVA, it’s a diamond-shaped area with just over 2,000 acres of vines planted. If you’re driving at 75 mph south on the 101 Highway from Wunpost (what post?) you’ll pass straight through it in roughly 13 minutes. By the time you see the US Army Reserve and National Guard near Bradley, you’ve gone by it. In 1994, Mr. Barry C. Jackson of the Harmony Wine Company drafted the petition to establish the AVA, and it met no opposition. A few growers agreed that because the valley is east-west, following the Salinas River, it is protected from the strong winds pelting the north-south oriented vineyards in the rest of Monterey. Vines growing here, in the foothills of the Santa Lucia Mountains, are treated to reasonably warm, in-land conditions. The resulting wines are bold, full-bodied, and expressive, especially those of Syrah and Petite Sirah, which are often imbued with the region's unique “garrigue” character—like sticking your nose in a jar of Herbs de Provence.