The focus of Piedrasassi's wine program is cool-climate syrah. We believe that good syrah can be made at many sites in Santa Barbara County, but it is at the cool climate sites that syrah is at its most compelling: producing the most complex aromas, the most savory textures. Our vineyards sites range from Ballard Canyon in the east to the Santa Rita Hills and Arroyo Grande in the west.
In the vineyard, we typically pick a bit earlier than our colleagues to keep the alcohol level in balance with flavor, and to preserve the natural acidity that is so important to wine’s role at the dinner table. In the winery, we employ some whole cluster inclusion and natural winemaking (indigenous yeast fermentation and no sulfur addition at fermentation) whenever it is possible without compromising the integrity of the wine. Elevage is in large format (500L) barrels to limit the wine’s exposure to oxygen and to minimize the influence of oak.
At bottling, we add the smallest amount of sulfur to the wine possible, which allows the aromatics to stay expressive while still protecting the wine during cellaring. The result, in all these bottlings, is syrah that shows off the different sites through aromas that bloom and evolve in the glass and tannins and mouthfeel that grip and engage the palate.
Since we began making the Piedrasassi wines in 2003, our ideas about wine have expanded and evolved. We enjoy drinking wines from lots of different regions--Burgundy, the Northern Rhône, Beaujolais, the Jura, and Piedmont, to name a few--so it is difficult to pin us down to a specific style we try to emulate. We are blown away by the tradition and sense of place of wines like Albert Dervieux's lyrical La Viallière from Côte-Rôtie, and are amazed at the stylized concentration and texture of Stanko Radikon's avant-garde Ribolla Gialla from Friuli. And we are continually inspired by the diversity of grapes and wines cultivated in the wide open, relatively uncharted territory that is the California wine industry.
The way these widespread tastes express themselves in the winery is in our different bottlings of our flagship varietal, Syrah, and a handful of small offerings of other varietals. For the Syrah, we focus on cooler climate vineyards, using native yeasts, low sulfur, and stem inclusion at fermentation to give transparency to the wines and to develop wines that have exuberant, lively aromatics. For the green label Sauvignon Blanc, we use extended skin contact for a mouthfeel unusual in a white wine. And the whole-cluster, closed-tank fermentation of the carbonic Sangiovese gives the wine a great freshness and energy that we absolutely love.
The common thread among all the wines we love and admire is that there are both a mind and a place behind them. Wine, just like food, or music, or art, should have a certain kind of authenticity--it should come from someone and somewhere. This idea is what informs the work that we do. We try to make honest wines that we believe in. We hope you like them.