The 2023 vintage in Northern California has been auspiciously hailed as a once-in-a-generation growing season. For us, the best way to sum up 2023 is to share that we set aside over double our standard library reserve of all the 2023s—and procured almost-impossible-to-find hock magnums so we could bottle mags of every single 2023 Desire Lines wine, including all the Rieslings.
The 2023s’ stunning beauty resulted from an exceptionally wet winter that recharged drought-stressed vines, and an unusually cold growing season that kept acids high with plenty of hang-time on the vine for flavors to ripen and concentrate, all while phenolics resolved. Everything we’ve learned about California Riesling, own-rooted old-vine Carignan, and coastal mountain Sauvignon Blanc came to fruition in 2023 thanks to these historically unusual weather conditions.
The vintage 2023 water year started our propitiously, with a parade of storms in late December and early January ushering in one of the coldest and wettest winters on record. The jet stream was unusually strong, spanning the entire length of the Pacific Ocean, with gusts exceeding 200 mph (well in excess of the usual 70-80 mph winds). This remarkable jet stream directed all manner of cold and wet winter storms to California, including narrow cold-frontal rain bands, atmospheric rivers, and even a low-pressure center that underwent bomb cyclogenesis. On December 31 alone, San Francisco recorded 5.5 inches of rain, which is the second-largest amount for a single day in the city’s 174 years on record. February brought more rain, and even snow, to the Bay Area, and March brought additional atmospheric rivers. The West Coast saw an astounding 31 atmospheric rivers from October 2022 through the end of March 2023, according to the Scripps Institute. And to put that in perspective, consider that an atmospheric river is the strongest and largest “river” of fresh water on earth – an atmospheric river of average strength transports water vapor at a rate equal to 7-15 times the average daily discharge of the Mississippi River.
All of this rain put a firm and welcome end to an historically intense drought that spanned from 2020 to 2022. By the end of the rainy season, the Sierra Nevada were drowning in snow, with snowpack depths at record levels. State water officials measured the average snowpack on April 1 at 236% of average, coming within a single point of the historic winter of 1952. Reservoirs were full and rivers were running high. The sheer volume of snowmelt flowing out of the Sierra Nevada re-birthed Tulare Lake in the southern San Joaquin Valley, which was the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River before it went dry in the middle of the twentieth century due to water diversion for agriculture and municipal uses. Tulare Lake grew to an astounding 180 square miles in size and took almost a full year to dry up and disappear once more.
The summer of 2023 featured a persistent troughing pattern, which typically gives the Bay Area a deeper marine layer and more onshore flow from the cool waters of the nearby Pacific, which made for an unusually cool and temperate summer. Typically our vintages are defined in part by how we as winemakers navigate the inevitable warm temperatures brought by high pressure ridges and heat domes, but in 2023, none materialized. June and July were historically cool, followed by a cool August, and a cool September… well, you get the picture. For many of our vineyards, harvest was three to six weeks later than average (depending on how you define average these days).
All of which explains why the 2023s are so remarkable – deep colors, beautiful flavors, vibrant acidities, silky tannins, and unparalleled balance. And why the vintage has been described by so many as the finest in living memory. The wines are drinking so well right now and they’re going to drink so beautifully well into the future, which is why we’ve held back so much extra for ourselves. And why we’re recommend these as “can’t miss, go deep” Desire Lines wines. It’s a vintage I expect to see very rarely in my lifetime, and I’m thrilled that we were at a point with Desire Lines to capitalize on that blessing and make our best wines yet.
2023 Cole Ranch Riesling, Cole Ranch, Mendocino
This wine marks our eighth vintage making Riesling from Cole Ranch, and the vineyard's 50th year growing it. The story gets me every time I tell it when pouring this wine for restaurants, stores, and distributors: Cody dreaming about making a white wine; cyber-stalking Cole Ranch via news articles and Google Maps; and the two of us driving up to Boonville on a fateful Saturday in October 2016, leaving a scrawled-out note on a piece of lunch sack and paperclipping it to the Cole Ranch gate. The English major in me knew we may have a great story in the making (this allowed me to put up with the six-hour round-trip drive that day), but I still couldn’t believe it when Cody said he got a call from the vineyard manager that we could purchase the fruit that year. Nowadays, the vineyard is in the nurturing hands of Mike and Jill Lucia, and Mike’s right-hand man Evie who lives on the ranch and has taken care of the vines for longer than we’ve been getting fruit. We are forever grateful that John Cole thought to plant Riesling in his valley 50+ years ago, and with the vineyard reaching quinquagenarian status, it is now certified by the Historic Vineyard Society.
We have the audacious ambition to make the benchmark California Riesling, and this particular rendition of 1973-planted Cole Ranch is our best and clearest statement to that effect. In 2023, all the dials are turned up – more acidic, more intense, more precise, more aromatic. The titratable acidity is almost a gram higher than usual for this wine, and the alcohol is almost a point lower, which wonderfully balances the 5.6 g/L of residual sugar and richness from a ten-month élevage in 1000-liter Stockinger ovals. This is an energetic, dazzling wine with classic Cole Ranch white peach, tropical notes, and orange confit accented by jasmine, honey, and ginger. The palate shows terrific fruit weight and a satin-y density that’s offset by striking acidity— we love drinking this wine over the course of three or four days in its youth to watch it evolve.
2023 Massa Vineyard Riesling, Carmel
Editor’s note: I, Emily, finally made Cody send me the GPS coordinates for Massa when I simply could not explain the vineyard’s location when pouring our Massa wines earlier this year. It’s linked here on Google Maps if you’d like to stare longingly at it and imagine sipping this refreshing wine during a long weekend visit to Big Sur. The legendary site on the edge of the Ventana Wilderness, planted in the early 1990s in granitic soils, organically farmed for over 30 years… Massa is just magic.
After the excitement of making a kabinett-style Riesling in 2022, we opted to return to a drier GG-style last year—particularly given the gorgeous cool weather in Carmel. The 2023 is decidedly autumnal – yellow orchard fruits and orange citrus, green herbs, and the spicy warmth of fallen leaves. We direct-pressed most of the wine per usual but reserved a portion of the grapes for an overnight skin soak and fermented that wine separately before blending back prior to bottling. The skin soak portion brings additional aromatic intensity to the wine, and a greater phenolic density to the palate that adds a lovely form and structure to embrace the wine’s Central Coast sunshine and 7.8 g/L of residual sugar. As with the Cole Ranch, this has a higher-than-usual TA and a lower-than-usual ethanol.
2023 Kick Ranch Sauvignon Blanc, Fountaingrove, Sonoma County
Antonio Galloni has described our Sauvignon Blancs from Kick Ranch as “bright and effusive; a serious wine for the dinner table; beautifully delineated with notable textural richness.” I love that he highlights the textural elements of this wine that we love so much, which indicate just how seriously we regard great Sauvignon Blanc. John Gilman agrees, writing about our 2022 Kick Ranch Sauvignon Blanc, noted: “On the palate the wine is bright, full-bodied, focused and complex, with a lovely core of fruit, good soil undertow, a fine girdle of acidity and a long, very nicely balanced finish. This is a very good example of Sauvignon Blanc – a varietal that all too many California wineries have turned their back on!” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves…
In 2023, we destemmed a small portion of the grapes and soaked them on skins overnight, before pressing the following morning. The inclusion of this little bit in the blend, with the usual direct press wine, has pushed the citrus and tropical fruit aromatics forward and added a density and richness to the palate that really suits the racy 2023 vintage character. We’re cautious to use even short macerations on white wines because the potassium leached out can buffer the pH upwards, softening the wine, but Kick Ranch is naturally a high acid site and in 2023 we had acid in spades. After spending ten months on fine lees in barrel, including one new barrel from the illustrious Fassbinderei Stockinger in Austria, the wine is exquisitely balanced and mouth-wateringly juicy.
2023 Evangelho Vineyard Red Wine, Contra Costa County
Welcome to the group chat, Contra Costa AVA! We’ve written at length about the distinctiveness of the unique region of Contra Costa County wherein lies Evangelho—and we would advocate for a sub-AVA of Contra Costa called the Oakley Sands as well—but delineating the CoCo AVA is an exciting development for Contra Costa wine. Evangelho has been one of our favorite vineyards since we first learned how to pronounce it via Bedrock wines in 2012.
Own-rooted, 1890s-planted vines in over thirty feet of pure sand: this is Evangelho. These sandy soils imbue the wines with distinctively suave and fine-grained tannins, and the vineyard’s location in the San Joaquin River Delta balances warm summer sun with an onrush of coastal winds that begin a little before lunchtime each day. This daily wind stress alters the vines’ respiratory rates: to avoid excessive transpirational water loss, the vines close their stomata when the winds pick up around noon, halting photosynthesis. This produces grapes with low pHs (3.3-3.5) and fresh, vibrant flavors.
The vineyard has been farmed thoughtfully and progressively for well over a century, and it shows – the vines are remarkably healthy, resilient, and wise. We hope our blend of 90% Carignan and 10% Mourvèdre does justice to the legendary nature of this singular place in the world.
The extended growing season at Evangelho Vineyard allowed for additional hang-time on the vine, which brings an entirely new dimension of richness and intensity to the wine. The wine is still fresh and focused, with cherry liqueur and blood orange soaring from the glass accented by rose petal, mint, and cedar, but with extra fruit weight on the palate. It’s a bit like someone tipped in an extra bit of demi-glace while making a pan sauce. This is without a doubt our best wine from Evangelho Vineyard yet – an iconic wine from an iconic vineyard.
2022 Lichau Hill Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, Petaluma Gap
Vineyards are truly like children – it’s hard to choose favorites. But, Lichau Hill Vineyard has a special place in our heart, and because of that we’ve staked out a big piece of Lichau Hill Vineyard for ourselves. We take the majority of the fruit off the vineyard, and we can’t say that about any other vineyard that we work with. The location alone makes Lichau Hill a standout vineyard: a Cabernet site so unusually situated on the west flank of Sonoma Mountain in the Petaluma Gap (and Sonoma Coast). We’ve made a number of changes to the farming and winemaking that I’m deeply proud of, and none of it would be possible without Hsiomei and Roger (vineyard owners and caretakers), Jake (consulting viticulturalist), and Victor (vineyard foreman). Thanks to you all!
Beginning in 2019, we were able to move our blocks to no herbicide in the vine rows, with clovers sown as cover crop for weed suppression and for their nitrogen-fixing properties. Last year, we trialed a style of un-hedged canopy management called tressage on Block 3. And this year, Jake recommended the use of hydrolyzed soy protein that Roger gamely applied. We’re also picking earlier than we initially did, to take advantage of the vineyard’s gift for resolved phenolics and terrific perfume. In the cellar, we’re increasingly utilizing a little saignée, warmer fermentations, longer macerations, a post-malo racking, and a longer élevage to bring richness, complexity, and a subtle savory imprint to what is naturally a fresh, vibrant, and silken wine style.
Our 2022 Lichau Hill Cabernet Sauvignon proves one of my favorite wine rules – look to cool sites in warm years. 2022 was a warm and dry year, which brings a degree of richness and generosity to an otherwise classically built wine. The vines at Lichau Hill are relatively old for Cabernet, having been planted in 1999, and must be deeply rooted for how little irrigation they require. They weathered the heat dome of 2022 without any trouble, which came well before the fruit was in the ripening window. Raspberry, rose petal, and cedar leap from the glass, while spice, tobacco, and cassis lend an exotic flair to this opulent, concentrated, and fresh Cabernet. I don’t think you’ll find more intensity under 14% alcohol than here (labeled 14%; 13.85% in reality). This wine makes the case that Lichau Hill Vineyard should be regarded as an iconic (and unmistakably distinctive) California Cabernet site.
As John Gilman said of our 2021 Lichau Hill Cabernet Sauvignon, “All of Cody Rasmussen’s wines which I have tasted for this issue of the newsletter are outstanding, but perhaps finding another completely old school example of Cabernet Sauvignon is the most exciting wine in his lineup, as they are all too few of them still made in California!”