The Mina Penélope Estate
- Wines are primarily made from organically grown estate vineyards tucked into a tight fold on the valley wall of Valle de Guadalupe. They source from additional select vineyards as needed from vintage to vintage. All are organically maintained.
- Production is minuscule; everything is done by hand by a husband and wife team who are the definition of the passion one finds in the small growers of the region.
- Vineyard site is 15 years old and Nathaniel Malagon who tends the vineyards comes from one of the oldest grape growing families in Valle de Guadalupe.
- Winemaker Veronica Santiago is one of the most well-respected winemakers in the valley and her pallet has shown itself in blind tastings to be one of the best. The wines she and Nathaniel are making are at once elegant, informed, and remarkably rustic old world in style. These wines follow closely the natural wine making style championed in the Loire and Saone valleys and emulate closely the body compositions and flavor profiles of the wines made in this area with minimal intervention.
Total production: 8 wines, 1,200 cases
2021 Julio 14 - Mina Penélope
Tasting Notes and Drinking Window:
On par with the ascent we are witnessing for all of their wines, this GSM blend is getting more polished by the vintage as winemaker Veronica Santiago finesses tannin management and her husband Nathan Malagon dials in his approach to farming their little slice of paradise. Ready upon release with a short decant, this is likely to age well for a decade or more on account of a superb balance of fruit and structure. Mina already has a cult following around her white, rosé, amber and sparkling wines, this wine is likely to initiate the same for her reds which are just as deserving of attention. Bravo!
208 cases made
Drinking window: Upon release - 10 years
Vintage:
2021
Blend:
70% Syrah, 20% Grenache, 10% Mourvedre
Producer:
Mina Penélope
Winemaker:
Veronica Santiago - Mexican
Vineyards:
All grapes were sourced from estate vineyards in Valle de Guadalupe, ejido of San Antonio de Las Minas. The vineyards arplanted across an undulating hillside at a elevation of 900 to 975 ft elevation at 2 miles from the Pacific. The vines were planted in 2007 in soils of decomposed granite and clay.
Winemaking:
All wines were hand picked, hand selected basket pressed and fermented individually in flexitanks for 13 to 14 days. They include at least 10% of full berries in the fermentation as well as a small amount of stems to help with the tannin and the fixing of the color of the final wine. After fermentation, the wine is racked in to American oak barrels most of which are 1st use. Here malolactic fermentation occurs sponatiously and the wine ages for 12 months.
Sulfites: 55 ppm
Farming:
Organic, sustainable
Alcohol:
13.5%
