Rising star pop-up tasting room calendar
Each month, our shop highlights a different small, local California winemaker by acting as a pop-up tasting room, exclusively featuring their wines by the flight or glass. Drop in anytime all month to taste and discover!
may 1-31: purity wine
Noel Diaz & Barrie Quan
Discover the unique flavors of Purity Wine! This local winemaking duo emphasizes organic farming and natural winemaking, creating fun, easy-drinking wines. They are also the creators of the Richmond Wine Collective, where seasoned and new winemakers come together to share and create.
“My wine and farming style are basically the same, to nurture rather than force, to give when I take. As for cellar practices, they are minimal, we are very much a mom and pop business, we do what makes the most economical sense without wasting our resources be it time, money, or labor.”
FEATURED WINES
$18 - Flight of all three wines
2024 Yummo! Petnat of Muscat of Alexandria $15/gl ~ $29/bottle to go
11% ABV ~ white ~ full body ~ Anderson Valley/Mendocino
WINEMAKING: The grapes were pressed whole cluster. After a few hours of settling, the juice went into a tank to begin fermenting. The ferment took several days to start, but by day 6 the yeast was in full effect. 5 days later we bottled with a potential alcohol of about .5% left in the juice. Bottling with the wine not quite complete, allows the fermentation to continue in the bottle. One of the byproducts of fermentation is carbon dioxide, which becomes the bubble that makes the petnat sparkling. We aged the bottles upside down so that yeast and bits and pieces of grape skin can settle in the neck of the wine, forming what’s called a plug. As there is a bit of pressure in the bottle that needs to be released, otherwise the wine will basically explode when opened, we quickly open the bottle under water, the plug is forced out of the bottle and then we refill with more of the same wine, or sometimes we can add a bit of another wine to add complexity.
2023 Tutti Frutti Gerwurztraminer $14/gl ~ $27/bottle to go
12% ABV ~ white ~ light body ~ Anderson Valley/Mendocino
WINEMAKING: The fruit came in a beautiful yellow/gold color, and it had a firm, almost crunchy texture when bitten into. To make it an orange wine, we decided to tread it by foot and allow the mashed grapes, stems, and juice to macerate for 4 days. We then pressed everything, separating the solids from the juice, and transferred the fresh wine to a stainless steel tank where it rested for nine months until bottling.
Abraxas Syrah Tempranillo $14/gl ~ $27/bottle to go
13% ABV ~ red ~ full body ~Sonoma Mountain / Sonoma & Lodi
WINEMAKING: The Syrah was macerated whole cluster for 28 months. This long maceration made for a very intensely black olive and wild herb quality. It was fine, lean, and bright with acidity. We aged it for an additional 2 years in the tank before bottling in March of 2022.
The Tempranillo was macerated whole cluster for 3 weeks. It was tread by fruit daily for the first 5 days, until enough juice was freed up to allow the solids to be submerged by hand daily. Keeping the solids under the juice keeps bacteria from taking hold and turning the wine into vinegar. The wine was aged in a barrel for two years and bottled in late 2020. The wine was intense, tannic, and dark fruited. It seemed like it would need years to soften.
One day while sampling both wines, we decided to blend what were interesting but one dimensional, wines and all of a sudden, the two complimented each other so much, that it was clear the whole was much better than the parts, a beautifully balanced, textured and aromatic wine, and still with more than 7 years of age, a wine with years ahead of it.