2019 Angeleno 'The Meadow' Rosé

Region: Lodi grapes + LA winemaking < CA

Grapes: Graciano

Winemakers: Jasper Dickson + Amy Luftig Viste

Wine production is a rare activity within the borders of Los Angeles,
let alone one that uses actual grapes from LA County. But apparently LA used to be a city of vines -- the first city seal was a bunch of grapes, and in the 1830's, they were making 2 million bottles of wine a year, three years before Napa even had their first commercial winery. So Angelino has one of the coolest stories around, involving actual Angelinos: Jasper worked at natty wine stalwart Silverlake wine for 10 years, where he met customer Amy, whose interest in wine grew to the point where she embarked upon enology studies at UCLA.  Jasper and Amy founded their wine project in 2014, when they began sourcing grapes, crowdfunded $25,000, started reworking a space in Chinatown (a 94-year-old building used to be a fabrication workshop) in April 2018, and then secured an ABC wine production license.

The Graciano (a Spanish varietal) here comes from a small vineyard about an hour north of Los Angeles outside a little town called Agua Dulce, where Jasper and Amy have partnered with farmer Juan Alonso, a visionary who planted an array of lesser known Spanish grape varietals from his native Galicia.   This rosé, named after a little park called “The Meadow” in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles where the duo live, is crisp, clean and bone-dry, with rich red fruit and a crushed-stone minerality.  It makes a perfect pounder for the park, or meadow, if you have one handy.