Some of the best wines grow in the craziest places...


Here's one of them. High up in the Cuyama valley, crowding against the foothills of the Southern Rockies, are a series of mesas which plateau out at 3200'. The soil is rocky, the air dusty. Water runs deep and whatever grows has to really want to grow. All along the valley below, the agriculture of Santa Maria fills the floor with hundreds of acres of fruit and grain and vegetables.

Up on the mesas, though, only a persistent weed with a knack for channeling its energy into fruit production can call this place home. This place is Alta Mesa, and finding it is like finding a lemonade stand on the moon -- perplexingly out of place, silly when you think of it, but beautiful in its own way. The altitude and soil force the Alta Mesa Mourvedre and Alta Mesa Grenache to produce fruit of unusual strength and depth.

Our first barrels of the 2005 Vintage Mourvedre are maturing nicely in our Sequin Moreau French oak barrels -- this will be a wine which will drink for years, yet taste extraordinary out of the bottle.

Coming in 2007! We can't wait to share it with you.