All the doom and gloom currently pervading the wine industry obscures one crucial fact: More great wine than ever before is available today from all corners of the wine-producing world.
Rather than bemoan the current state of the world, I want to take an opportunity to celebrate 10 under-sung California producers who are doing the work, making terrific wines and who deserve to be better appreciated.
These are not famous producers who charge hundreds of dollars a bottle, nor are they wealthy enthusiasts who, having succeeded in one business, have turned to wine as a lifestyle investment. These are scrappy individuals who mostly can’t afford vineyards or wineries. They are piecing together businesses that allow them to make the sorts of wines they love.
Most can’t make a living on their labels alone. They work day jobs — sometimes more than one — to support their own labels. They must often trade work for grapes or for space in a winemaking facility. If they own land, it’s not in high-status areas like Napa Valley.
Rarely do they make wines with the most popular and expensive grapes. Usually, they use lesser-known grapes they can afford, which gives them the freedom to be more experimental.
Each year is a challenge, never more than in the current retrenchment, as the wine business is contracting. Against the odds, they are making wonderful wine.
Because they are small and just establishing themselves, they produce only minute quantities. Some of these labels, like Matt Crutchfield Wines, I’ve never seen outside California. Others, like Âmevive, Emme, Gail and Iruai, can be found in a half-dozen or a dozen states. I never know when I’ll run into one of these wines, but I always feel lucky when I do.
This selection is in some ways accidental. Young winemakers have created dozens, if not hundreds, of labels. I found many of these wines almost by chance — they somehow intrigued me on a wine list or at a store. I’ve written briefly about some of the producers on this list. Doubtless, others deserve to be on it, too.
Here they are, in alphabetical order.
Âmevive
Âmevive is a partnership between Alice Anderson and Topher de Felice. They are based in Santa Barbara County, where they lease the Ibarra-Young Vineyard, which was planted in 1971 and has some of the oldest vines in the county.
Among those vines are Rhône and Spanish grapes like mourvèdre, marsanne and tempranillo, which they farm with an eye to biodiversity using regenerative and biodynamic practices. The Âmevive wines are fresh and alive, richly textured yet not heavy and always intriguing. The first vintage was 2019.
Emme
By day, Rosalind Reynolds is the assistant winemaker at Pax, a superb producer based in Sebastopol, and manages logistics for the winemakers who share Pax Mahle’s winemaking facility there. In her spare time, Ms. Reynolds creates clear, precise, terrifically drinkable wines under the label Emme.
She started in 2018 with small lots of carignan and colombard, which she calls the unsung heroes of California wine because of their long but little-known history in the state. She’s since expanded to other grapes.
Her wines, all with whimsical names, are made from organically grown grapes and without additives. They are almost always super fragrant, restrained and savory. I’ve especially enjoyed her 2023 Tell Your Sister I Say Hi, a lovely, textured colombard; her ’23 Pink Lemonade, a wonderful chillable pale red made with white and red grapes; and We Touch in Silhouette, a beautifully balanced grenache from Shake Ridge Ranch in Amador County.
Florèz Wines
James Jelks of Florèz makes all sorts of natural-leaning wines from a wide array of grapes, generally from organically farmed vineyards. He shares a production facility outside Santa Cruz with Megan Bell of Margins Wines (see below), which they outfitted with secondhand equipment and castoffs.
His wines include a deep, complex sauvignon blanc from Mendocino County and a lively red field blend from the Santa Clara Valley. But I’m particularly excited when he finds oddball grapes, like his picpoul or, especially, his Monsieur Mystérieux, made from the cryptic cabernet Pfeffer grape, grown in the Enz Vineyard in Lime Kiln Valley in San Benito County.
The 2022 was gorgeous, floral and, as the name of the grape suggested, peppery. It was wonderful lightly chilled.
Gail Wines
Dan O’Brien, a former sommelier in Boston, started Gail in 2013 as a side project while working for Larkmead Vineyards in Napa Valley. The Gail wines are intended to showcase single vineyards in Sonoma Valley, a historic appellation that sometimes is overshadowed by more famous and fashionable regions.
Mr. O’Brien says he was inspired by classic European wines and producers like Bernard Baudry in Chinon and Giuseppe Rinaldi in Barolo. His wines show his attention to detail, light touch and minimalist winemaking approach. His chenin blanc is superb, and a sangiovese, from the Monte Rosso Vineyard, was so good it might require a re-evaluation of the reviled Cal-Ital category.
To support Gail and its entry-level sibling label, Doris, Mr. O’Brien also works as a management consultant to other wineries. “I’m going to be with Gail all my life,” he said. “If I can live off it someday, that would be a dream come true.”
Iruai
Iruai started off in 2013 as Methode Sauvage, an urban winery in Berkeley, Calif., run by Chad and Michelle Westbrook Hinds, before changing its name to Iruai and moving to Etna in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in the extreme northern part of the state (for reference, Etna is near Cheeseville and Weed).
Iruai makes natural wines, primarily from alpine grapes, which they believe can thrive in high elevations and cool climates of Northern California and southern Oregon. I’ve especially enjoyed Iruai’s tangy, herbal Elphame savagnin, and its Shasta-Cascade white, a blend of five grapes, but really, all Iruai’s wines are distinctive and fascinating.
Margins
I’ve written about Megan Bell’s wines several times because they are so good and they are usually excellent values. She makes wines from grapes, vineyards and regions that she feels are underrepresented.
I’ve never had a Margins wine that I haven’t liked a lot. I’ve been particularly drawn to her chenin blancs, which have always been textured and deeply satisfying, but her Neutral Oak Hotel blends, which she does in white and in red, have also been terrific. She sources organic grapes and adds only a little sulfur dioxide during the winemaking process.
Margins began in 2016 with a small crowdfunding campaign. She now shares a winemaking facility near Santa Cruz with Mr. Jelks of Florèz.
Matt Crutchfield Wines
I was in a wine bar in Sebastopol, Calif., a few years ago and ordered a glass of chenin blanc from a producer I didn’t know. It was so good — tactile, with the sweet-dry honeyed, floral flavor that I love in chenin blanc, rich yet not heavy. It was a Matt Crutchfield wine. I’m now excited every time I see one, which so far has been only in California.
Mr. Crutchfield works as assistant winemaker at the excellent Ryme Cellars in Forestville. It was Ryan and Megan Glaab, the Ryme principals, who pushed Mr. Crutchfield to make his own wine. His first vintage was 2021.
He works exclusively with organic grapes and has some experimental wines in the works, including a solera project and a falanghina made in a sous voile style, as in Jura or with fino sherry, in which a yeast is allowed to form on the surface of wine aging in barrels. I can’t wait to try them.
“It’s hard to sell wine right now,” Mr. Crutchfield said. “I have a lot of friends working three or four jobs now, hoping one day to make their own label their day job.”
Minus Tide
Minus Tide makes excellent wines from grapes grown in Mendocino County close to the Pacific Coast. It’s a project of three people, Brad and Miriam Jonas, husband and wife, and Kyle Jeffrey, all of whom went to school together at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. Their first vintage was 2017.
They primarily work with chenin blanc, chardonnay, pinot noir, carignan and syrah, and the wines are always clear and articulate, savory and textured. I’ve yet to have a Minus Tide wine I didn’t like.
When not collaborating on Minus Tide, Mr. Jeffrey is the winemaker for Woods Beer & Wine Co., Mr. Jonas is assistant winemaker at Toulouse in the Anderson Valley, and Ms. Jonas works in wine public relations.
Outward
I’ve come across the Outward wines only recently, but each one has been rewarding. Outward is run by the husband-and-wife team of Ryan Pace and Natalie Siddique, who organically farm six acres on the San Luis Obispo Coast and Santa Ynez Valley while buying additional organic grapes from other Central Coast vineyards.
They make wines in a minimalist way, adding nothing but small amounts of sulfur dioxide at bottling. Their 2024 sauvignon blanc from the Presqu’ile Vineyard was energetic and dry, while a ’23 chardonnay from the Bassi Vineyard in San Luis Obispo was rich and deep. I look forward to trying their reds as well.
Terah Wine Company
After training as a sommelier, Terah Bajjalieh worked in various wine jobs until the Covid-19 pandemic, when she lost her winery management position. With the help of friends, she started her own label, Terah Wine Company, making, she said, “wines that are balanced, energetic, meant to age and with acidity that are to be enjoyed with food.”
She buys only grapes that are farmed organically, biodynamically or regeneratively. Her wines lean toward the natural but are rooted in classic styles. Most often, she looks for Mediterranean varieties.
I very much enjoyed her 2023 verdejo from Paicines Ranch in San Benito County; a superb ’23 falanghina from Clarksburg, made as an orange wine; and a spicy, savory ’22 grenache from the Besson Vineyard in the Santa Clara Valley.
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Eric Asimov, the chief wine critic of The Times since 2004, has been writing about wine, food and restaurants for more than 30 years.
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