The Vena Cava Estate
- Vena Cava is a boutique winery founded in 2005 by Phil and Eileen Gregory under the principles of passion and quality over quantity. While they didn’t start with the intention of making “natural” wines, the more they learned the more this seemed the only interesting route forward. Today they are among the standouts of wineries in Mexico that are making exceptional wines in a “natural” style. While the estate makes wines that are strictly natural and others that are organic and noninterventionist (yet still apply some conventional techniques), we offer only their purely natural wines.
- All Vena Cava wines that have “Crystal Ship" or“Natural” as part of the name are made with organic grapes, fermented with native yeast, see no corrections, fining or additives and are bottled unfiltered with only a minimal amount of sulfites.
- While Vena Cava has its own estate vineyards, they have focused their business model on creating deep relationships with the best growers and the best vineyard sites such that, today, only 10% of their wines come from their estate owned grapes.
Vineyard locations, elevations and grape varieties –
- In addition to their 9.8 acres of estate vineyards located next to the winery in Valle de Guadalupe, they source their grapes from a number of select sites in Valle de Ojos Negros, Valle de San Vicente and Valle de Santo Tomás. All are organically farmed.
Total production: 10 regular wines and 10 “experimental” wines that change occasionally from vintage to vintage, 2,000 cases
2024 Crystal Ship Ambar CB - Vena Cava
Tasting Notes and Drinking Window:
Having really defined the “ambar” or “orange” wine category in Mexico, Vena Cava has been refining it’s approach over the years as well as narrowing down the number of options on offer. While at one point they had 4 ambers to choose from they have brought it back down to just one, this lovely Chenin Blanc. In keeping with their wild spirit, this is incredibly expressive and complex, but there is a refinement and precision that shows the winery has matured over the years. Crisp on the attack and with a lovely bright finish this will certainly bring naysayers back to the orange wine category.
222 cases made
Drinking window: upon release - 4 years
Vintage:
2024
Blend:
100% Chenin Blanc
Producer:
Vena Cava
Winemaker:
Phil Gregory - British, lives in Mexico
Vineyards:
Valle de Santo Tomas – From the vineyards of the Santo Tomas winery planted in wildly different eras in soils principally composed of clay with some granite stones at an elevation of 524ft.
Winemaking:
The pressed juice was fermented on ambient yeast with the skins, (with a small portion of stems for tannin management) in flexitanks for 2 weeks. The wine was then racked and transferred to stainless steel tanks to settle. The wine was bottled unfined, only gross filtered (9 microns), and had only minimal sulfites applied for stabilization.
Sulfites: 15 ppm
Farming:
Sustainable
Alcohol:
13.2%
