2020 Las Jaras 'Wavy Red' CANS 2pk

Region: Mendocino < California

Grapes: Zinfandel, Petite Sirah

Vineyard/Cellar Stats: Organic certified farming, dry farmed vines from the Gary Venturi Vineyard near Ukiah; 75% of the juice underwent carbonic maceration in tank, blended with 25% of the juice aged in oak; bottled unfined/unfiltered, with 10ppm SO2 added; 13.48% ABV.

Winemaker: Joel Burt

Actor/comedian Eric Wareheim (the tall dude from Master of None) is passionate about natural wine and drinks a lot of it with his buddy Aziz Ansari, his Master of None co-star and fellow natty wine aficionado.  So he created Las Jaras ("haras") with his friend Joel Burt, Domaine Chandon winemaker by day, to make the kind of light, bright, low ABV wines he wants to drink daily.  Wines that “elevate daily experiences”, as he puts it.  Which this delicious canned glou glou red most definitely does. 

2020’s end-of-the-world level wild fires created a particularly challenging vintage for all California producers. The goal was to avoid high levels of smoke taint. The best way to do this is to have very little contact with the grape skins. Inspired by the great producer’s of France’s Beaujolais region, Waves red is made with carbonic maceration to make for a very light and crunchy expression from otherwise big bodied red grape varieties.  Explains Joel: "Smoke taint was our biggest obstacle in 2020. To overcome it, we came up with a winemaking process that avoids having the juice in contact with the skins. Our method is inspired by the classic Jules Chauvet version of carbonic maceration, wherein the tank is drained of juice daily. This is different than the carbonic maceration method most people use today: Typically, the juice that comes out of the berries macerates with the wine to maximize extraction, but in our method, there is no juice contact with the skins or the stems, resulting in a pure carbonic maceration."

Blending the fresh style red wine with a touch aged in old barrel adds some base to the tasty cans. Getting creative this vintage allowed Las Jaras to make delicious wines, but also allowed them to purchase fruit that would have been abandoned on the vine by other producers.