Trifuno is one of the most unique wineries we've ever featured. First of all, they are located in Calabasas in the Santa Monica Mountains. This is not considered your everyday wine country. Secondly, they offer winemakers the chance to play "weekend wine warrior" by contracting with individuals to pick grapes from their vineyards and make their own wine in a licensed wine facility. So they're not what you would call your warm and fuzzy winery with the underground caves and fancy picnic grounds.
While many of these grapes go to home winemakers, occasionally the facility makes its own wine, and that is what we're featuring this month. I believe that I can safely report that we have never featured a wine from this area. As a matter of fact, until this gem came along, we've never even tasted a wine from this area! Of course, the vines were just planted in 2001 so that will certainly explain the tasting gap, but even still, we like to know what's going on, especially when it's in our own backyard, so to speak.
The Santa Monica Mountains are characterized by a true Mediterranean climate of mild wet winters and dry warm summers, which is ideal for growing wine grapes. The proximity to the Pacific Ocean balances temperature swings allowing for a late harvest, and blesses the grapes with unique and complex flavors.
The mountains are characterized by sedimentary rock, volcanic intrusions and sparse topsoil which provide an abundance of minerals and nutrients to nourish each vine. These conditions also provide proper drainage, mandatory in growing grapes, so that the vines don't get flooded in a deluge. All the vineyards are planted on slopes containing rocky soils allowing for excellent drainage and for the ability to stress the vines to create grapes with intensity and flavor. It's odd to consider, but true in all cases, that vines need to be a little unhappy in order to produce grapes packed with flavor. That doesn't work with spouses, however.
We could be coy and say that this is the best wine from the Santa Monica Mountains we've ever tasted. The fact is, besides that being the case; we were absolutely mesmerized in spite of our initial apprehension. This wine totally rocks!
June 2010 Limited Series Newsletter (.pdf)
