2017 Haarmeyer Chenin Blanc 'Cresci' Borden Ranch

Region:Lodi < Califiornia

Grapes:Chenin Blanc

Vineyard/Cellar Stats:Certified organic farming, volcanic pink granite and quartz soils; dry-farmed, foot trodden then whole-cluster pressed in an old-school screw press; fermented in an old puncheon on the lees, no stirring; rests here for 55 weeks before bottling; unfined/unfiltered with minimalSO2; 54 cases; 11.8% ABV

Winemaker: Craig Haarmeyer

Craig Haarmeyer has no formal wine education or training, but we think he’s making some of the most interesting and honest wines in California. His parents had restaurants and a wine shop, so he grew around the biz, and started fermenting anything and everything in college. That evolved into helping out at a family friends' winery in grad school, then realizing he could make wine himself.  He also slid slowly into natural wine making, he says, “because I made the modern wines for years and realized that those wines don't hold up, don't interest me, don't taste, smell or feel like the wines I grew up on. All of the wines I like to drink and admire are made with little or no ‘winemaking’. Plus, for me it is important to achieve an aesthetic of natural beauty in everything I make, including wine.” He makes tiny lots (as in one barrel of each) of 6 or 7 different wines each vintage, including a few different takes on Chenin Blanc.  This, from the organic Palmero Family farm in the eastern district of Lodi called Borden Ranch, is our favorite.  Super classic and wooly, with that Chenin chalkiness and acid, rounded out with beautiful white flower, wet stone, mineral and D’Anjou pear notes (the green, firm kind not the squishy, soft Bartlett kind).  A fabulous winter white.