Wine: Ojai: Riesling 2008

California

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Ojai Vineyard

The Ojai Vineyard, owned by Adam & Helen Tolmach, works closely with a dozen different vineyards on the Central Coast of California and produces wines from syrah, grenache, mourvedre, pinot noir, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and viognier. About 6000 cases are produced each year, divided between 15 bottlings, most of which are vineyard designated wines.

The key to producing special wine is in the care taken growing the grapes. There is an inverse relationship between quantity and quality when it comes to grapes, so rather than purchasing ours by the ton, we have long term agreements with our growers to buy the fruit by the acre. This lets us culture the vines and thin the crop to our strict specifications, yet allows the grower to receive a fair return.

In the winery we like to watch the development of the wine carefully, yet prefer to do as little as possible. Experience has shown us that the least amount of moving, pumping, fining and filtering is always best. The ultimate objective is to show off the distinctive character of a vineyard site.

We publish two newsletters a year (spring and fall), in which we offer our wines in advance of delivery at discounted prices to our mailing list customers. If you would like to be placed on our mailing list please sign up here or fax us your mailing address information. If you are interested in ordering wines that are currently available from The Ojai Vineyard please see our order form.

The Ojai Vineyard is not open for tours or tasting.

I had never thought much about riesling until I moved to Ojai full time in 1993. The summers here are hot, and I found myself drinking more and more white wine during those hot months. I don’t care much for semisweet wines, but the dry style rieslings from Germany and Austria are quite thirst quenching-and surprisingly food friendly and versatile. That love of the classic dry rieslings led to my curiosity about a small vineyard way out west of the town of Los Alamos. By coincidence, it’s just a few miles from where I got my start in the wine business. Old-timer grape king Dale Hampton once told me that this area was particularly well suited for riesling, but since grape quality and the economics of the wine business don’t always jive together, almost all the Riesling in the valley was torn out and replaced with chardonnay. I had seen Kick On vineyard in the early days when it was just being planted but had forgotten it had riesling, so when I heard that some was available, I jumped at the chance. 2007 was our first offering, and it was a take-no-prisoners-styled wine that had searing acidity-and tasted terrific with goat cheese and crackers. This 2008 is also dry-and strikingly unlike other California rieslings if a bit more consensual. It has a beguiling lemon peel aroma and fresh, crisp minerally flavors, yet it is richer flavored and rounder than the previous effort.

• Alberta