November 2025 Wine Club
Union Sacre 'Nouvelle' Dry Sylvaner 2024
The vibe: Sylvaner?? I hardly know her! Wait but seriously, who is she? We’re so glad you asked. Sylvaner is one of our favorite niche varietals hailing from Alsace, France but rarely grown outside this region. Rancho Sisquoc, the preeminent Santa Maria Valley vineyard for Sylvaner fruit, has been owned by the same family of cattle ranchers since 1850! You may have noticed this bottle’s slender shape and long neck, and in fact, all Union Sacre bottles share this physique, owing inspiration to the elongated bottles of Alsace. With an American and French winemaker duo at the helm, Union Sacre wines are an homage to the union of two backgrounds and two terroirs. The result is an unmistakably Alsatian-coded white wine with plenty of buzzing acidity, lime leaf citrus notes, flinty minerality and a kiss of asian pear sweetness on the finish.
The winemaker: The founders of Union Sacré wines, Philip Muzzy and Xavier Arnaudin, are two unassuming friends from opposite sides of the world that met making wine in the Central Coast. Xavier has an oenology degree from France, and Philip is a self-taught designer from Michigan. After becoming fast friends working for wineries that shared facilities, Philip asked Xavier to help him make a Riesling for his wedding. The two set off on this adventure and it was a SMASH HIT! They had quite a bit of wine left over, so they sold it off. This little project went so well they decided to run with it and continue to make wine together.
The geeky details: 100% Sylvaner. Straight to press press then fermented in stainless steel tank on fine lees. Aged in neutral French oak barrels and 500 liter puncheons. Bottled unfiltered and unfined.
Serve: With a chill.
Food pairing: This crispy, acid-driven white will complement complex dishes with savory, spicy, or umami notes and will wash down salty shellfish, grilled fish, and even the dreaded asparagus (notoriously difficult to pair wine with!).
Album pairing: Parcels - LOVED
Dalia ‘Splet’ 2022
The vibe: SPLET. Fun to say, even more fun to drink! Translating from Serbian, splet describes a tangle or snarl. While we haven’t spoken to winemaker Kristina Lukić about the meaning behind this name, it is a great word to describe this wine and indeed her overall influence in winemaking, coming from a global winemaking background, then returning to Serbia to make wines informed by her experiences, blending international and local varietals to create something entirely new. The blend in the bottle before you is a tangle of the familiar and the exotic. Gamay Noir makes up the majority of the pressed juice here, an homage to Kristina’s time making wine in Beaujolais (and psst, the ultimate Thanksgiving dinner pairing). Blended in is the Serbian varietal, Vranac (with a soft “c” like “nats”). With Vranac lending its strength and structure, this combo makes for an epic balance of thirst-quenching crunchy red fruit, with a bit of soft tannic texture and bolder riper flavors tilting the scale toward medium-full body. This wine is so crazy good and we bet it’ll pair up excellently with any potluck spread, friendsgiving, or uncle’s empty glass. It’s a crowd pleaser, just drink it!
The winemaker: The young winemaker Kristina Lukić at Vinarija Dalia, started learning how to make wine in Italy. After completing her studies in viticulture and oenology at the University of Udine, during which she completed her first two harvests in Sardinia and in Beaujolais, she started her journey around the world to enrich her cultural and professional knowledge. Kristina’s dream was to always go back to her homeland, and apply and share her experiences and knowledge with the local people, and in 2021 she opened Dalia in the village of Smedovac. On an influential level, Kristina’s presence and influence is having a wider impact on the local community. The emergence of Dalia has empowered female producers in the region to take the reins and follow in the footsteps of the region and now the presence of women in these villages is very strong, from business management to work in the vineyard.
The geeky details: 80% Gamay, 20% Vranac. Hand harvested in early October, fermented with indigenous yeasts in open vessels; macerated for 2 weeks. Aged for 10 months in used Serbian and French oak barrels of 225l. Unfined, unfiltered and minimal sulfur addition used at bottling.
Serve: Cellar temp.
Food pairing: As suggested, this wine will cozy up to basically any Thanksgiving spread you throw at it. Gamay is the de facto grape of the month for good reason!
Album pairing: Kassa Overall - CREAM
Bura-Mrgudić 'Basina Plavac' 2022
The vibe: We’ve been on an Eastern European kick since last month’s Slovenian wine theme (ok, we’re always on that kick so sue us). We couldn’t stop with Serbia, so here, this is a coastal Croatian red that will blow your speedo off (or scarf, it’s freezing outside I just checked, hi it’s Nick). Plavac Mali is a traditional red grape grown in Dalmatia, Croatia’s coastal peninsula. Growing on steep slopes facing the Adriatic with southern exposure and hot, dry summers, these grapes are big, bold and ripe. Traditionally, plavac would have been harvested and bottled as such, but here, grape are picked a bit earlier from younger vines and therefore the wine is softer and more elegant, with a modern touch of freshness. On the palate, a rich and earthy profile with incredible complexity follows with fig and blueberry fruit with a touch of salty, kelpy brine. Truly a unique experience and if you close your eyes you can almost hear the Dalmatian pelicans.
The winemaker: Located on the steep 45 degree Southern slopes of Pelješac Peninsula known for its big reds, Bura vineyards produce the most unique, delicious and prestigious wine to ever come out of the Dalmatian Coast. As much as there is talk about all the different wineries and winemakers in Croatia, no other winemaker stands out more than Niko Bura and his sacred Bura Dingač. Niko Bura’s vineyards are fully organic and are the truest expression of the microclimate and land of Croatia’s southern Dalmatian coast. The Bura family has one of the longest traditions of winemaking in Dingač and Croatia as a whole, spanning over sixteen generations -- since the year 1410!
The geeky details: 100% plavac mali. Dry farmed, organic vineyards. Manual harvest, slightly raisinated grapes, destemmed, naturally fermented in open vats with manual punchdowns, 6 days maceration. 10 months in 225-liter used French oak barrels, one year in bottles before release.
Serve: Cellar temp.
Food pairing: Looks up some traditional Croatian recipes to try out! Dishes with lots of herbs will bring out these notes in the Plavac Mali. Perhaps counterintuitively, fish would be an incredible pairing here, given the umami finish on this wine!
Album pairing: Bonobo - The North Borders
————
WHAT THE FUNK?!
Léo Dirringer ‘Virose’ 2024
The vibe: With the Alsace-inspired Union Sacre Sylvaner in the lineup this month, it’s only fitting that we pop in an orange wine from Alsace proper! This is an orange wine of Gewürztraminer, a tricky grape to pronounce but incredibly easy to drink. This is one of the most common of the noble Alsatian varietals (Union Sacre also makes one!) and for good reason. Packed to the gills with bursting lychee, hibiscus and donut peach notes, this is a total flavor bomb and one of our favorite expressions of this varietal. With just a few days’ skin contact, it remains light on its feet and beautifully poised, which is more than we can say for ourselves every time we open a bottle. This one goes down easy!
The winemaker: Dambach-la-Ville is an ancient fortified village on the eastern slopes of the Voges in north eastern France. The 4th generation to farm here, Léo brings a new vision and methodology to his family domaine. Working to maintain sustainability and affordability, he shows that additive-free, non conventional winemaking can be a viable option in this traditionally farmed and historically hallowed enclave. Léo studied in Montpellier, then went on to Switzerland to study Oenology. It was there that he began to drink the natural wines that would eventually turn his head and heart to dream of a new future for the family estate. It was in 2017 that Leo persuaded his parents to convert the domaine to organic viticulture, and he began to take over from them at the same time, creating his own range of natural wines alongside the more traditional wines of the estate. He has held firm to his vision of farming and vinification with chemical-free, traditional techniques, all cuvées are wild fermented, unfiltered and are sulphur free. In Léo’s own words he “tries to make fresh, digestible and fluid wines” and we'd have to say he succeeds in doing just that.
The geeky details: 100% Gewürztraminer from the granite soils of Dambach la Ville, Alsace. Maceration for 3 days in destemmed harvests, followed by maturation in concrete vat for 8 months without sulfur additions.
Serve: With a chill.
Food pairing: Sichuan food with spicy, numbing notes. Spicy trout with chili sauce. Moroccan chicken. Tandoori!
Album pairing: Earth Boys - Mythic Music
————
EASYYYYY
Alfredo Maestro ‘Almate’
The vibe: Spanish red wine! It seems almost every Spanish red wine we’ve been trying has been well suited to this time of the year. These wines are warming and spicy, and with no shortage of coastline and rugged mountains, it’s not too hard to find examples that also retain freshness and tension. It’s this balance that drew us to Alfredo Maestro’s ‘Almate,’ the first wine that he ever made (named after himself: Al-Ma-Te) in Duero. This wine is sourced from several plots of Tinto Fino aka Tempranillo, located at elevations ranging from 700 to 1,000 meters (high elevation = fresh wine!). This is a super clean, classic Spanish red, especially impressive when you consider that Alfredo doesn’t add a drop of sulfites. We’ll salud to that!
The winemaker: Alfredo’s ascendance is unique to Alfredo. His family came to the winemaking town Peñafiel, Ribera del Duero from the Basque Country. Having grown up amongst the vines, Alfredo had a great interest in wine, and, through encouragement from friends, he started making his own wine in 1998. That same year he planted his first vineyard on the Rio Duraton near his home. From the beginning he farmed organically. In the cellar, Alfredo was working literally “by-the-book”, teaching himself enology from a book and using every trick in it to make a “correct” Ribera del Duero wine: yeasts, acid, enzymes, tannins, color-enhancers, etc. were just some of the techniques utilized. In search of serious “purple-ness”, this is how many of the modern Ribera del Duero’s of today are produced. In the early 2000’s Alfredo had a revelation. He questioned why as an organic farmer use chemicals to make the finished wine; he wanted to work as naturally in the winery as he did in the vineyard, in his words - "to better tell the story of the land." Alfredo began eliminating exogenous products, and in 2003 he began making wine without any additives whatsoever, including sulfur.
The geeky details: This cuvée is made from fruit sourced from various plots of Tinto Fino (Tempranillo), of varying vine ages located, in Valtiendas at 1,000 meters elevation, as well as Peñafiel, at 700 meters. The wine is fermented in steel vat with 15-20 days of maceration and 50-100% stem inclusion depending on vintage, and raised over winter with one racking: unfined, unfiltered, and no added SO2.
Serve: Cellar temp.
Food pairing: Manchego cheese! Spicy Spanish charcuterie meats! This is a somewhat powerful wine (in profile, not in punch), and will stand up to rich and savory dishes with smoke or char.
Album pairing: Jackson Mathod - Come on Now EP