Pura Vida
For vintage 2018 we introduce our newest red wine: Pura Vida - The Farm Winery's celebration of the Petit Verdot grape.
While we have farmed Petit Verdot for every vintage since 2010 (found most often blended into The Big Game and LPF), the grape has played a minority role. In some years, Petit Verdot has been as little as 1% - too small a part to even be nominated for Best Supporting Actor!
Petit Verdot is often seen as dark, brooding, monolitihic, highly tannic. If Petit Verdot were a musical instrument in an orchestra, it would be a tuba. And, it's rare to listen to a symphony of tubas.
In 2018, we had an epiphany with our Petit Verdot farmed in Paso's Adelaida District AVA. It held the potential to be the lead role. Maybe not a 100% Petit Verdot wine, though 60% is a solid majority.
We look forward to seeing what future vintages bring for PV as well....
Vintage 2018 winemaker's notes
113 cases produced. 60% Petit Verdot, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon from Paso Robles Adelaida District.
A new wine!!!!!
As most of our wines have been, Pura Vida is defined in the vineyard and by the vineyard. Limestone hillsides off of Adelaida Road, in the Far Out part of Westside Paso Robles. A great block of Cab called us there, and almost accidentally we decided to farm in our way an acre of Petit Verdot as well.
And wow! the surprise of that Petit Verdot. I have to tell you that I’ve never thought of Petit Verdot as a standalone wine. Only as a minority blending component. And here we are, making a wine that is 60% Petit Verdot. A wine that is Bordeaux if Bordeaux could have the fruit that California has. A complex and deep nose redolent of dark fruit, wrapped in warmth and velvet. A firm palate where both Cab and Petit Verdot stand up, but where Petit Verdot leads the dance. A stature that both invites back to the glass and awes in its potential. A wine that could have been a component of The Big Game, but that we bottled on a hunch. And I’m so happy for this hunch!!
This is the vineyard that changed my mind about Petit Verdot.
Vintage 2018 review
Ripe blue and black berries with an inky undertone. Some graphite and chalk, too. Fresh and very juicy on the palate, with bright acidity and really fine, sweet tannins. Elegant, linear and long. Already delicious and drinkable.
93 points; James Suckling October 2022
Opaque ruby. Pungent blackberry, cherry-vanilla, pipe tobacco and floral qualities on the fragrant nose. Fleshy and expansive in the mouth, offering spice-laced black and blue fruit flavors and subtle hints of candied violet and succulent herbs that build with air. Finishes on a bitter cherry note, showing solid thrust, youthful tannis and very good, floral-tinged persistence. Aged for 30 months in a combination of new and used French oak barrels. Enjoy 2024 - 2033.
92 points; Vinous November 2021
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