2021 Los Chuchaquis Sparkling Albarino, Santa Ynez Valley, California (750ml)   

Los Chuchaquis is a small project from Stirm Wine Co’s Ryan Stirm & Andrew Nelson. Andrew and Ryan do everything by hand, from bottling and affixing labeling, to delivering the wine from Santa Cruz to SF.

From the C5 vineyard in the heart of the Santa Ynez Valley, this organically farmed Albariño was their first foray into the world of sparkling wine. Made via simple methods, the grapes were picked at night, pressed with no skin contact and fermented warm to dryness. A portion of the juice was reserved, frozen, and later added to the finished wine, and bottled the next day, mid-November with 3 months of bottle age, to finish the secondary fermentation in bottle. Unfined, unfiltered, no sulfur added, and not disgorged.