In Santa Barbara wine country‘s premier tasting town, Los Olivos, you’re in for a treat this year. Especially if you’re a red gal or guy.
If you are, I’m assuming you rang in the new year donning red underwear for luck (if you know your Spanish traditions). Now that’s done, your new-found good luck can bring you to Andrew Murray Vineyard‘s Los Olivos location, where you can relax on the new tasting room couch in red style. All while sipping his new red wine releases.
When I was there, that meant 2008 Thompson Vineyard Syrah and 2008 Terra Bella Vineyard Grenache, both of which are drinking well in these early days. These wines will clearly improve over time, as they are just out of 22 months in barrel. Keeping them in bottle for a year or more would give them the same time in barrel & bottle requirements as a Spanish Rioja Reserva. This region in Spain (as with many other regions in Europe) has strict laws about how much time wine must spend in barrel and bottle to be labeled and released under its appelation. This helps guarantee the quality for the drinker, and helps make more elegant wine – wine worth waiting for – not something you can always find in California.
Andrew Murray is one California winemaker who shows restraint in releasing wines, and I love that about him. Most wines on his current tasting list are from the 2007 vintage, so you can rest assured about time in barrel and know it will improve with time in bottle.
In the meantime, he brings you the newly designed tasting room where you can preview these wines you’ll be drinking in a year or so. And in this case, you really won’t mind being in the red. And white.
There is also white wine on the tasting list, as well as white touches (sultry leather couch, white bar stools) in the tasting room. The white plus metal and mirrors make the whole thing a little Palm-Beach-meets-wine-country, which quite frankly the area might have needed. And with this many wines on the daily tasting list, it is some new year good luck indeed.
Nice write up and photos! I dig your style of putting it all out!
I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Andrew recently. Both he and his wines are rock stars! There are many wines I buy and like to drink. Then there are wines I buy and get excited about every time I see the bottles……his wines fall into this category for me.
His Esperance which is a GSM blend got me super excited. I bought a half case and will be talking about it for a while. The Terra Bella Syrah from Paso Robles and RGB (Roussane Grenache Blanc) are those types of wines too. Very exciting wines and very affordable big big value wines.