Buy 3 - Domaine De La Cote Pinot Noir Memorius, Bloom's Field, DDLC
Buy 3 - Domaine De La Cote Memorius, Bloom's Field, DDLC
2022 Domaine De La Cote Memorius
2022 Domaine De La Cote Bloom's Field
2022 Domaine De La Cote DDLC
Domaine De La Cote
The Sta. Rita Hills are unique among winegrowing places, an austere and somewhat harsh place in which to produce subtle wines from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, varieties long associated with gentler locales. We lie in the contested space between that vast, frigid, tumultuous sea and an equally expansive, severe, arid desert. We came to this place seeking an antithesis of the preordained richness of new world winelands, where plump and generous wines seemed inevitable, in search of a site that compels vines and people together to struggle in a productive way that can be overcome only by hands and effort, observation, and ingenuity. We sought an incisive place that would scrape away a wine’s uncomplicated flesh to reveal the muscle, bone, and organ that become the contour, nuance, and novelty of wines unique to this place. Finding a place where nature inexorably imposes its aesthetic we hope allows us, through viticultural choices and straightforward winemaking, to discern and clarify its signal.
The process, not just the product, nurtures us. A goal since breaking ground in 2006 was to be able to pose questions to the vineyard, as to an oracle, about elements and earth, about wine, about the nature of life itself. Answers came first as vines that lived and claimed a foothold in the earth and blossomed and grew strong. Then as grapes, small in volume but dense with matter, energy, and potential. And finally as wines, each year more pure and original, more beguiling and eloquent. Each year, the same questions elicit new answers, which we mull over and chew on and drink deeply of, and which ultimately further this story, our story, propelling us exhilaratingly into the new vintage.
Domaine de la Côte is a Californian wine label owned and run by the high-profile sommelier-winemaker duo of Rajat Parr and Sashi Moorman. It covers a series of Pinot Noir vineyards in the Sta. Rita Hills region of Santa Barbara.
Grapes from the Domaine vineyards are vinified at the pair’s Sandhi winery in Lompoc.
The vineyards themselves are all found on the western edge of the Sta. Rita Hills AVA, six miles (10km) from the Pacific Ocean. Planted on south-facing slopes, with high-density Pinot Noir, the vineyard designate labels include Bloom's Field, La Côte and Memorius.
The Domaine was purchased by Raj Parr and Sashi Moorman in 2013 after the sites were first developed by Moorman and Chris King (as part of a Californian project by Oregon winery Evening Land) in 2007.
The vineyards were planted in 2007 and the wines are made with minimal intervention and with whole bunch ferments.
Buy 3 - Domaine De La Cote Memorius, Bloom's Field, DDLC
2022 Domaine De La Cote Memorius
As ever a welcoming and engaging wine from the moment the cork is drawn, gregarious Memorious throws off a homey, inviting scent of warm, ripe berries, tea, tobacco, and cedar. This Memorious is texturally more tightly wound than some of its predecessors, awash in youthful energy that will settle down over its first year or two in bottle. As it finds its form, though, you will experience a delicious and generous wine whose concentration and force are deceptively subtle.
2022 Domaine De La Cote Bloom's Field
Upon first pour, the nose offers a riot of ripe strawberries, both summery fresh and gently warmed strawberry compote—rich, thick, fruity, irresistible. After fifteen or so minutes the ripe fruit is joined by a group of earthy aromas—wet stone, peppery bramble, and savory herbs. The wine’s gentle and easygoing texture, while studded with polished but young and noticeable tannins, belies the tightly wound core within. While loaded with youthful zest, the wine will reward the patient as these elements integrate and grow with complexity over many years.
The quiet intensity detectable in the mid-palate leads inevitably to a long and persistent finish. Even in its youth the wine is complex and approachable, but will have a long life in bottle.
2022 Domaine De La Cote DDLC
A savory DDLC in which the pronounced underbrush and wild forest mushrooms subtly shake hands with the sun-warmed flavors of cherry and red currant. Texturally, it’s neither coarse nor fine, but somewhere in between. With a nice feeling of density and chewiness, the wine pleases the tongue as much as it does the nose.
Domaine De La Cote
The Sta. Rita Hills are unique among winegrowing places, an austere and somewhat harsh place in which to produce subtle wines from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, varieties long associated with gentler locales. We lie in the contested space between that vast, frigid, tumultuous sea and an equally expansive, severe, arid desert. We came to this place seeking an antithesis of the preordained richness of new world winelands, where plump and generous wines seemed inevitable, in search of a site that compels vines and people together to struggle in a productive way that can be overcome only by hands and effort, observation, and ingenuity. We sought an incisive place that would scrape away a wine’s uncomplicated flesh to reveal the muscle, bone, and organ that become the contour, nuance, and novelty of wines unique to this place. Finding a place where nature inexorably imposes its aesthetic we hope allows us, through viticultural choices and straightforward winemaking, to discern and clarify its signal.
The process, not just the product, nurtures us. A goal since breaking ground in 2006 was to be able to pose questions to the vineyard, as to an oracle, about elements and earth, about wine, about the nature of life itself. Answers came first as vines that lived and claimed a foothold in the earth and blossomed and grew strong. Then as grapes, small in volume but dense with matter, energy, and potential. And finally as wines, each year more pure and original, more beguiling and eloquent. Each year, the same questions elicit new answers, which we mull over and chew on and drink deeply of, and which ultimately further this story, our story, propelling us exhilaratingly into the new vintage.
Buy 3 - Domaine De La Cote Memorius, Bloom's Field, DDLC
2022 Domaine De La Cote Memorius
As ever a welcoming and engaging wine from the moment the cork is drawn, gregarious Memorious throws off a homey, inviting scent of warm, ripe berries, tea, tobacco, and cedar. This Memorious is texturally more tightly wound than some of its predecessors, awash in youthful energy that will settle down over its first year or two in bottle. As it finds its form, though, you will experience a delicious and generous wine whose concentration and force are deceptively subtle.
2022 Domaine De La Cote Bloom's Field
Upon first pour, the nose offers a riot of ripe strawberries, both summery fresh and gently warmed strawberry compote—rich, thick, fruity, irresistible. After fifteen or so minutes the ripe fruit is joined by a group of earthy aromas—wet stone, peppery bramble, and savory herbs. The wine’s gentle and easygoing texture, while studded with polished but young and noticeable tannins, belies the tightly wound core within. While loaded with youthful zest, the wine will reward the patient as these elements integrate and grow with complexity over many years.
The quiet intensity detectable in the mid-palate leads inevitably to a long and persistent finish. Even in its youth the wine is complex and approachable, but will have a long life in bottle.
2022 Domaine De La Cote DDLC
A savory DDLC in which the pronounced underbrush and wild forest mushrooms subtly shake hands with the sun-warmed flavors of cherry and red currant. Texturally, it’s neither coarse nor fine, but somewhere in between. With a nice feeling of density and chewiness, the wine pleases the tongue as much as it does the nose.
