Glassmaker - Marsanne - California, USA - 2016

This here Marsanne is special to me for a few reasons! I like the way it tastes. The grapes are farmed organically on the edge of the delta in the shadow of Mt. Diablo. So I made it, there’s less than 200 acres of this grape in California so it's a bit of a rare bird. I’m one of 2 people that make it from this vineyard (and Martha Stouman blends it with a few other things so this is really all there is!). The special thing about this vineyard is a sand to deep loam transition. It's a goldilocks zone of just enough dirt to thrive but sandy too, driving the roots deep, soil nutrition and a possibility that the grapes will struggle just enough.

I made the wine in as simple a way as I know how. Grapes picked just under 20 brix, at a nice low acid level (dig it). About 20% Rousanne. All yeasts used are native to the air and grapes. All oak barrels were a decade old and gave no flavor to the wines. Malo-Lactic was native and finished real nice. The juice was left to oxidize then racked off the fruit lees. The fine lees were never stirred. The wine was topped sometimes, but not others (always with intention). And was sulfured after malo at 20ppm and before bottling at 10 ppm. Giving you a live stable table wine made in a simple way to get a complex result. No fining, no filtering at all.

Other than site and grape the main difference between the Marsanne and the Picpoul is that that Marsanne likes an extra year in bottle before release to flesh out its unctuous structure. Notes of honeysuckle, peach pith, wet granite and lemon leaf. Pairs best with brick chicken, or uni y bucatini, sardines, or raclette and potatoes!

"Howdy, I’m Jonathan Walton and I made these wines! Why? Its something about loving hard work and getting dirty, then cleaning up and pretending at being fancy. Its something about participating in a community of food and wine and friends and strangers that I love and admire. Its something about afternoons every fall when I smell the air, see the darker sky and crave from the deepest levels of my being northern rhone Syrah. And its something about gratefully, critically contributing to the discursive of wine.
Glassmaker is a family name. It is a project that I’ve made my life and yes it does tend to get intertwined quite quickly with all my passions. Intertwined like good friends and good drinks around sturdy old tables. Intertwined like the random beautiful histories of this California. Histories that involve wild lands and ignoble grapes. Histories that were bent by tenacious farmers and immigrants; driven, morphing communities. So please enjoy, keep learning and pretend with me at being here and there!"