2020 Anthill Farms Mixed Blacks, Peugh Vineyard
Sonoma County, California
Regular price: $45 per bottle
Sale price: $36 per bottle
Once upon a time, in a far away place, immigrants, many of whom were from southern Italy, settled and found, in this Mediterranean climate, a landscape not unlike that which they left behind. So, they planted…fruit trees and tomatoes, olive trees and vegetables, and…grapes. Some of the grapes were new to them; they took cuttings of those that were already proliferating in the hills and valleys of this new Eden. Others were brought from home and adapted well to this vaguely similar growing area. Initially, no one took much care in dividing up blocks of vineyards for specific grapes; when ripe, the grapes were harvested and crushed and fermented and made into wine, as the families of these immigrants had been doing for time unknown.
These wines, made of an assortment of grapes, co-fermented and largely bottled without excessive aging, were labeled to invoke images of European wines…sweet whites as ‘Alpine Riesling’, less sweet were ‘Chablis’. Full bodied reds were labeled ‘Hearty Burgundy’ and little or no information was ever supplied as to the actual varietal make-up of these wines. No one really cared, it wasn’t really thought to be useful information.
Many of those immigrant families have grown and prospered; names we still see such as Gallo and Sebastiani and Seghesio. The fertile, sunwashed hills of Sonoma continue to produce tomatoes and olives and grapes…although the practice of picking and blending all the grapes available into a single ‘field blend’ has been mostly left behind. Consumers want to know what grapes are in the bottle, even when that information is specious or illusory. Sure, some producers still make field blends, but these are becoming more and more rare.
Imagine our surprise (and delight) when we came across this wine! It’s a blend of 8 or 10 undisclosed grapes, most of them red, a few white (which is not at all atypical). It’s rich and full yet lively and fresh. That it’s both at once makes it somewhat of an anachronism, and yet not at all unmodern, as its concentrated style and (relatively) high alcohol level will attest. The wine is joyfully fruit forward, plush and aromatic with sturdy and integrated tannins and invigorating finishing acidity. This is an easy wine to pair food with; anything substantial will do well, and it has enough elegance and balance to enjoy as a cocktail. It suggests, at least, that the ‘old ways’ still have value. (PW)
(For the record, I wrote the above about the 2019 release of this same wine. I didn’t think that I had anything new or different to say about it.)