Buy on firstbottlewines.comTasting Profile
Look
Medium lemon
Smell
Meyer lemon rind, apple aromas, and honeysuckle
Taste
Baked pear, melon, grapefruit, lemon zest
Body
Light bodied
Brief
Normally $30, Ian Brand’s crazy-delicious, refreshing Albarino is just what you need to shake it up a bit. So good! La Marea is made by Ian Brand of Le P’tit Paysan, a tiny winery focused on single vineyard Spanish varietals “rooted in the sea, the soil and the sea air”. Brand believes Monterey and San Benito to be some of the most ideally suited climates in California for Spanish varietals like Albariño, Grenache (Garnacha), and Mourvedre (Monastrell). He’s all about picking at lower Brix (lower sugars), native yeast and little to no oak. You MUST try this wine (especially at our price we scored!) and get out of the Sauvignon Blanc rut -- cool, crisp, minerally and highly complex, with killer acidity and zip. The Kristy Vineyard grows on the western bench over the Salinas River on the broken sediment of ancient sea beds where it is exposed to the consistent cooling winds off Monterey Bay. Kristy is a special one, because Albariño in the vineyard reaches full phenological ripeness at low potential alcohol and bright natural acidity later in the season. $17.95! $107.70 a 6-PACK, w/ free ground shipping, of course! While it lasts!