2024 Massican "Gemina", Napa Valley, California, USA

ABOUT THIS WINE

Greco 50%, Falanghina 34%, Fiano 16%.  One of the most unique blends in white wine, Gemina, tastes like licking coral from the Mediterranean Sea around the Amalfi Coast. This is Massican's Southern Italian white wine-inspired blend. The name Gemina is derived from the ancient Greek grape, Aminea Gemina, planted in Italy around 600 and is the DNA equivalent of the current grape, Greco. Gemina is designated California appellation because the grapes are farmed in Dunnigan Hills (38%), Clarksburg (34%), and the remainder in Sonoma (28%). The Greco is harvested from the following vineyards: Ferrendelli (Dunnigan Hills) and Bowland (Russian River), the Falanghina is harvested from Lost Slough (Lodi), and the Fiano is from the Bowland (Russian River). 100% of the vineyards are organically farmed, and no glyphosate is used to control weeds at any of the vineyards.

Every grape from every vineyard is hand-harvested and fermented separately. The grapes are harvested at daybreak and then whole-cluster pressed at the winery. We settle the fresh-pressed juice overnight, decant it in the morning to barrels or tanks, and then ferment it with native or cultured yeasts in French oak barrels (80 gallons), stainless steel barrels (75 gallons), or larger oak vessels and stainless steel tanks (multiple sizes). Gemina was fermented in 76% neutral French oak, 12% stainless steel, and 12% concrete egg!

After we blend the wines (in January) and before we bottle them (late February), we sterile-filter them. We do this for two reasons: first, to remove any dead or active yeast cells that may cause the wines to re-ferment in the bottle, and second, this filtration process provides us with crystal-clear wines.

None of the Massican wines receive any fining (clarifying) agents prior to bottling, and they do not undergo cold stabilization to remove tartrates (acid crystals that form when the wine is exposed to excessively cold temperatures; to visualize this, think of a snow globe).

ABOUT THIS PRODUCER

There is little doubt that Dan Petroski is one of Napa's most influential and talented winemakers. He has masterfully helmed an iconic Napa Valley Winery, incorporating his stylistic voice while maintaining the structure, rich fruit and long lived tannins that is expected of an Iconic Napa Valley Cabernet, producing what we think is some of the valley's best red wines. But it's at Massican, Dan’s own winery, where his formidable intellect and boundless imagination are allowed free rein.

Massican is the only winery in Napa Valley that focuses exclusively on white varieties. Named after the Monte Massica in southern Italy, the ancestral home of his grandparents, but heavily inspired by the wines of Northern Italy, Massican works with six varieties. Four of these are familiar to lovers of Italian whites, Tocai Friulano, Ribolla Gialla, Pinot Bianco, Greco and the other two are familiar to all, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. Either produced as single varieties or masterfully blended, each wine is teeming with energy. While they are all unique, there is a through-line of dancing minerality and layers upon layers of fruit.

Massican is the culmination of Dan’s focused vision of producing California’s best white wines. While he certainly has some stiff competition, we would have to agree that his vision has been fully realized. The wines are a perfect symbiosis of the relentless complexity that California is famous for while retaining a freshness and lightness that speak to the Mediterranean wines that inspired them. Dan’s wines at Massican are as complex as they are pleasurable, wildly unique as they are brilliantly focused. They are love letters to the beautiful land of his heritage and the abundant and magical place he calls home.