LIOCO
CHARDONNAY
DEMUTH 2010 CALIFORNIA

Wine Makers Notes... The rap sheet on Demuth reads like hard case: Exposed mountain-top site. Tough, rocky soil. Dry-farmed (!!). Biodynamic. Old-Vines. Wente Clone Chardonnay. Marginalized by phylloxera. Yields of < 1 ton per acre. Thankfully, owner Peter Knez (backed by star vigneron Anthony Filiberti) is determined to keep the vineyard alive. The small amount of fruit we get here produces some of the most compelling Chardonnay we've ever brought into the winery. At 12.3% alc., the frame is lithe. The attack is all about soil--like a detonating mineral bomb.

'Matt Licklider & Kevin O'Connor, founders of LIOCO Winery and very much a part of the New California Wine movement, believed it possible to both make compelling wine domestically and to do so from vineyards outside the prized county of Sonoma.  NoCo (an abbreviation for North Coast) is our second label focusing on wines grown in the six counties north of San Francisco (Marin, Sonoma, Napa, Solano, Lake,  Mendocino). The principled philosophy which propelled LIOCO into the limelight is applied here— choice vineyard sites, clean horticulture, low yields, early harvest dates, minimalist winemaking.