Birichino Jurassic Park Vineyard Chenin Blanc 2022 (6 Bottles) Santa Cruz, California

by Fine Wine Cellars

$502.00 GST Included

AUSTRALIA WIDE SHIPPING INCLUDED

The Jurassic Park Chenin Blanc came about as most great things do in California: over lunch in west Hollywood. Alex and John were enjoying a post-trade event meal with their friend, Angela Osborne. The New Zealand-born owner/winemaker at Tribute to Grace told them about an old Chenin Blanc vineyard near her house in Los Alamos in Santa Ynez Valley.

Showcasing their inability to turn down old-vine fruit from well-managed, interesting and mature vineyards, by the end of lunch, the Birichino boys had purchased a parcel of fruit to be collected the following day.
Located about four hours from the winery in Santa Cruz, Jurassic Park is the furthest-flung site Birichino works with. Planted in the late 1970s, the own-rooted vineyard sits at 335 metres, just above Santa Barbara in Santa Ynez Valley.

The soils are pure quartz, with beach sand at the top of the slope and chunks of limestone littered throughout. Of all the sites John and Alex work with, Jurassic Park exhibits the most vintage variation, with Chenin styles ranging from lithe and appley through saline and chalky to fully exotic. 2022 keeled towards mineral and savoury, with ocean air and oyster shell at the helm.

The fruit was picked in one go; Alex and John do not make passes through the site, so varying degrees of ripeness are captured in the bunch, lending tension and freshness to the sunny, ripe fruit. The fruit was picked in the second week of October and fermented spontaneously in stainless steel. The wine then matured in a mixture of stainless-steel barrels (80%) and neutral French wood (20%).

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Description

About Birichino Wines

Alex Krause and John Locke founded Birichino in Santa Cruz in 2008. Drawing on a combined four decades making wine in California, France, Italy, and beyond, they are focused on attaining the perfect balance of perfume, poise, and puckishness.

Sourcing from a number of carefully farmed, family-owned, own-rooted 19th and early 20th century vineyards (and a few from the late disco era) planted by and large in more moderate, marine-influenced climates, their preoccupation is to safeguard the quality and vibrance of their raw materials.

Their preference is for minimal intervention, most often favoring native fermentations, employing stainless or neutral barrels, minimal racking and fining, and avoiding filtration altogether when possible. But most critically, their aim is to make delicious wines that give pleasure, revitalize, and revive.

Fine Wine Cellars

On the one hand, our role as a merchant of all things wine & spirits could not be simpler. We aim to source the most delicious, the most authentic, and the highest quality products possible from Australia and around the world in order to offer them to our clients. We live or die by how well we perform this task. Of course things are rarely as simple or as easy as they seem. Hunting for wines & spirits is no different. Apart from the months spent travelling, countless days and evenings spent tasting and the outrageous wine expenditure in the name of ‘research’, sourcing quality wine and spirits requires expertise and experience. Understanding the potential of a producer and their products is much more than just a slurp and a spit.

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