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By Alex on May 5, 2010

 

Gabe from DrinkDryCreek.com recently blogged about his visit to the winery on Passport weekend:  

Visiting Unti Vineyards During Passport 2010

April 29, 2010

One of the places I’d never been before for Passport was Unti Vineyards. I’ve enjoyed their wines over the years and I was eager to see what their Passport event was like. The thing that has stood out to me over time about Unti is their varietal selection. At times you go from one winery to the next and taste the exact same grape types over and over. At Unti they make a few you may not be as familiar with. Zinfandel is featured to be sure; but it’s joined by the likes of Barbera, Sangiovese, Grenache, Mourvedre and more to form a distinct portfolio that will take your palate on a trip off the typical beaten path.

It turns out Passport to Dry Creek Valley is serious fun at Unti, just like their wines. Music was provided by Tim Vaughn. The band’s sound was a blend of rock, jazz and blues all with a vibe that alternated between searing and mellow.

The lineup of wines being poured started with the 2009 Unti Rosé. This wine is a classic example of dry Rosé that landed right in my sweet spot.  It was followed by the 2007 Grenache which is one of Unti’s best releases vintage after vintage. There are a few people in Dry Creek who make top shelf Grenache, count Unti in their number.  

The featured food item at Unti was sliders. Not only where they delicious they also paired wonderfully with the 2007 Zinfandel. There are certain things that are meant to enjoy together. Grilled, tasty meat and Zinfandel are two of those things. Several other wines were also poured during Passport including a couple of Syrahs.

What’s most impressive about the Unti wines is that they’re incredibly well balanced in a style reminiscent of the old world. While Unti is very much a California producer, their traditions, methods and style assure that they bridge the gap and provide elegant, food friendly wines at reasonable prices. So whether it’s over the next few weeks or at Passport 2011, Unti is a fun and tasty stop we heartily recommend.

Posted on http://www.drinkdrycreek.com/?p=3137

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Futures pricing on present releases March 6-7, March 13-14

By Mick Unti on February 25, 2010

The first two weekends of March we will be releasing our 2007 Grenache, 2007 Zinfandel and 2006 Syrah. To celebrate these exciting wines, we are offering special pricing on all of our wines. You can assort any 12 bottles and receive a 20% discount. This includes our 2005 Reserve Syrah, 2005 Benchland Syrah, 2006 Grenache, 2006 Zinfandel and our 2007 Petit Frere. We will be here in full force to handle the masses who will undoubtedly want to take advantage of this hot deal.

Basically we are offering “futures pricing on presents.” How’s that for a clever double entendre. FIF

See February, 2010 Newsletter post for more info on the new releases. We are a little excited about them.

Mick

Posted in Events | 2 Responses

2006 Syrah in the house

By Mick Unti on January 15, 2010

Dylan

It’s Winter Wineland Weekend and we are celebrating by listening to Bob Dylan sing Walking in a Winter Wonderland from his new Christmas cd (Ouch! Hurts my ears and throat just thinking about it!) and drinking our latest release, the 2006 Syrah.

It seems like we don’t give Syrah the love we used to. What with the likes of Barbera, Grenache and Montepulciano around, who can blame us if our attention has strayed from “the one who brung us.” Our 2006 Syrah is more than a worthy reason to re-focus.

As you know, we have been incorporating some of our newer plantings of Syrah into our “normale” bottling. In 2006, we didn’t get the structure we expect from these vineyards. The cooler nature of the ’06 vintage limited ripeness and phenolic (tannins) development of our winery block Syrah, so we took it old school, and used only fruit from our original Benchland Syrah block to make this wine.

That means this 2006  is a “Mini-Me-Benchland Syrah.” Similar to our 2001 Syrah, which, BTW, is drinking beautifully these days, our 2006 really shows the deep blackberry smoked meat character of this vineyard. Because most of this wine was slated for the Benchland bottling, our ’06 received the royal treatment and was aged in a higher-than-normal amount of our best new French oak barrels. It all adds up to a wine that will certainly please long-time fans of our Syrah.

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Hardly, Strictly Crushing

By Mick Unti on October 2, 2009

As many of you know, we have been farming “naturally” for several years now. Part of this philosophy includes farming according to the lunar cycle, cosmic constellations and other worldly dynamic forces. The guiding light for when we harvest grapes, beyond the standard factors, such as sugar, acid, ph balance and flavor ripeness, is the Maria & Matthias Thun Calendar. The Thun Calendar classifies each day one of the following categories: Flower, Leaf, Fruit and Root. Since wine grapes are a fruit, we try to harvest on only “Fruit” days.maria & matthias thun calendar

The weekend of October 3rd and 4th, there will be a fantastic music festival in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park called Hardly, Strictly Bluegrass. The list of performers includes: The Chieftans, Dave Alvin, Emmylou Harris, Boz Skaggs, Billy Bragg, Nick Lowe,  Steve Earle Del McCoury, Jorma Kaukonen and many others. Wouldn’t you know those are not fruit days, which means no crushing, which means Unti Vineyards Field Trip! I love this natural winemaking stuff!

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we resume crushing grapes until our facility is full.

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