behind the wine
Welcome to Lucy. The wines we take great care in crafting under our Lucy label are standouts for us in their ability to combine glamor with versatility. Because they pair well with a wide range of dishes, they’ll shine in any setting. We’re particularly proud to be able to match these three wines to a trio of outstanding causes: funds to support breast cancer research, ocean conservancy, and the Big Sur Fire Department.
Lucy Rosé
After selecting pinot noir grapes by hand, we gently press and ferment the juice into wine. Then, from what we learn during meticulous tasting sessions with small-scale blends, we craft a wine whose bright acidity and soft coral color will stand out in any setting.
Rosés are usually produced either through whole cluster pressing or by Saignée (a practice in which a proportion of the juice from pressed grapes is bled away in order to concentrate color and tannins). We create Lucy using both methods. We begin by sending the fruit directly to the press to be squeezed and take great care to retain only the most delicate and aromatic juice. Next, we drain a small amount of juice from tanks of grape clusters, which gives the wine slightly more texture. Combining both practices allows us to create this exceptional and delicate rosé.
Finally, we cellar Lucy in neutral barrels that lend texture and roundness to the wine, without the wood flavor. After three months, our beautiful rosé is bottled in clear glass that sets off the wine’s vibrant color.
PurchaseLucy Pico Blanco
Our blend of pinot gris and pinot blanc is named Pico Blanco to commemorate a mountain peak in Monterey County known for its beauty and its high-grade limestone mineral deposits. With Pico Blanco, we pay homage to Monterey County’s earliest grape growing traditions–traditions in which pinot gris, an early-planted cool climate grape in the region–played a central role. Crafting this wine is a way for us to locate ourselves in historical time and place and to respect the traditions of grape growing in Monterey County.
As always, purity and complexity continue to be our focus. The pinot gris and pinot blanc grapes to be blended into Pico Blanco are hand-sorted and carefully pressed to moderate the extraction and flavor derived from their skins. We use entirely neutral barrels for fermentation to sustain the purity of the fruit and to augment its texture. We also depend exclusively upon native yeast. Doing so is another way we maintain the traditional winemaking practices we prize. At the same time, this practice allows us to coax complex flavors from the fruit. We bottle Pico Blanco without any fining.
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Lucy Gamay Noir
The Gamay Noir vines, traditionally found in the granite-dominated soils of the Beaujolais region of central France, sink their roots deep into the earth below the Santa Lucia Highlands, where they find a familiar composition of decomposed granite. This soil is an exceptionally rare find in coastal California; the granite was delivered here when part of the Sierra Nevada mountain range was sheared off and sent northward by the San Andreas Fault activity and forms what is today’s Sierra de Salinas.
Though credit must be given to this beautifully expressive variety and the granite-laden soils, it is the winemaking techniques that have truly brought the wine to life. As a nod to traditional Beaujolais Cru wines, this Gamay noir was fermented with 60% whole clusters in open-top tanks to create a semi-carbonic environment. To add to the complexity of the wine (and lending a touch of local history), a portion of the fruit was fermented in a vintage California redwood tank. The 100% native yeast fermentation featured a combination of punch downs and pump overs, allowing for gentle extraction of aroma and flavor. After fermentation, the wine was transferred to a rare and special selection of neutral French oak barrels, where it aged beautifully for 8 months prior to being bottling unfined and unfiltered.
We produce our Lucy wines in limited quantities, maintaining the utmost care and attention all the way from the vineyard through the bottling process.
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