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The passionate and exuberant Gary Vaynerchuk (aka Gary Vee) included our Arneis in a tasting of "Interesting Italian Whites" on Episode #835 of WineLibrary TV. "Fresh and creamy, fresh and creamy." Check out what he has to say on this entertaining and educational video blog.
2008 Arneis Honea Vineyard Santa Ynez Valley 2007 Alisos,
Santa Barbara County 2007 Barbera Honea Vineyard Santa Ynez Valley 2008 Palmina Botasea
Rosato di Palmina Santa Barbara County 2007 Dolcetto Cane Pruned Honea
Vineyard Santa Ynez Valley 2008 Dolcetto Santa Barbara County 2007 Lagrein Honea Vineyard Santa Ynez Valley 2008 Malvasia Bianca Larner Vineyard
Santa Ynez Valley 2005 Nebbiolo Honea Vineyard Santa Ynez Valley 2005 Nebbiolo
Santa Barbara County 2004 Nebbiolo Sisquoc Vineyard Santa Maria
Valley 2006 Sangiovese Undici Santa Ynez Valley 2008 Tocai Friulano Honea Vineyard Santa Ynez
Valley 2008
Tocai Friulano Subida Honea Vineyard Santa Ynez Valley 2008 Traminer Alisos Vineyard Santa Barbara County Palmina goes from the “Wine Ghetto” to the White House
"It's like the Dalai Lama" Santa Barbara News Press correspondent Tyler Blue recently spent a few hours with the Palmina crew, noting: The Cliftons are champions of the Italian mentality whereby food and wine are intertwined. "We never intended to just be a winery and tasting room," Chrystal explains. "The process we enjoy is educating and inspiring people to see how the connection between food and wine happens between season and region." Amongst all the varietals, Nebbiolo is Palmina's ultimate muse. "It's like the Dalai Lama in the form of liquid," Chrystal gushes. Steve figures, "We have 17 other wines that support our Nebbiolo habit." This challenging yet rewarding varietal takes four years to make. The investment has been paying off as Palmina has been the only American producer invited to present at the Nebbiolo Symposium in Italy. Read the entire article here. Palmina and Nebbiolo
"...an audience made up primarily of Italian consumers is of course used to the ruby-garnet colors, floral and fruity aromas, and dry, warm, velvety palate of the Valtellina and Piedmont wines. The beautiful clarity of the ruby color, aromatic complexity presenting not only the classic Nebbiolo combination of tangy red fruit and floral bouquet but also earthy, spicy accents, and consisent notes of red fruit and spices in the California Nebbiolos were a new experience for many." Read the full article here.
2006 Palmina Honea Vineyard Santa Ynez
Valley Barbera
Steve Clifton’s “Italian Stallion” operation in southern California is the best of its kind in the United States, and these wines seem to go from strength to strength. His excellent whites are all stainless steel fermented and really do capture much of the character that comes from the region most commonly associated with these wines, northeastern Italy. The 2007 Pinot Grigio Alisos exhibits notes of buttered apples intermixed with hints of tropical fruit and a slice of minerality in its light to medium-bodied flavors. This wine should be drunk over the next 12-16 months. Even better is the 2007 Pinot Grigio Honea Vineyard, which displays exuberant fruit, with notes of orange blossom and lemon oil as well as hints of honeysuckle and Granny Smith apple skins. This wine should be drunk over the next 12-16 months. The 2006 Arneis is fresh, flowery, medium-bodied, and just delicious. This wine should be drunk over the next 12-16 months. The 2007 Tocai Friulano Honea Vineyard offers notes of apple skin, lemon zest, spring flowers, and hints of herbs and spice. The wine is dry and deliciously fresh and vibrant. This wine should be drunk over the next 12-16 months. The 2007 Traminer displays “Christmas” spice, lychee, and honeyed notes, dry, crisp, medium-bodied flavors, and surprising length. Among the reds, the stars I found included their 2006 Dolcetto, which displays plenty of dark cherries, bitter chocolate and espresso roast, dense ruby purple color, but loads of fruit. Best drunk in the first 3-4 years of life. The 2006 Barbera Zotovich Vineyard has briery black cherry and berry fruit with hints of chocolate, underbrush, and spice. Best drunk in the first 3-4 years of life. The other top red was the blend of 50% Nebbiolo and the rest equal parts Barbera and Sangiovese, the 2005 Savoia. This wine exhibits complex new saddle leather notes intermixed with strawberry, black cherry, roasted herbs, and licorice. It is deep, dark, medium to full-bodied, and just gorgeous. Best drunk in the first 3-4 years of life.
"The methods here are moving as close as possible to those of traditional Italian producers, Steve Clifton told me. "But we are absolutely not trying to make imitations," he said. "We have our own unique terroir and fruit expression, but I'm drawn to wines that are unadorned and pure, which is what I find in the best old-school Italian wines." To that end Clifton is using larger casks (botte, in Italian) to minimize oxidation during barrel aging, and extending the time his nebbiolos spend in barrel, "hopefully, to get finer tannins and more aromatic complexity." This is certainly the most impressive set of nebbiolos I've ever encountered outside of Italy, and finer than many from inside it." Read the compklete review here.
“Mr. Clifton emphasizes that he's not trying to mimic the Italian version of those grapes; rather, he's trying to take those Italian grapes and reinterpret them, given the growing conditions and vineyard sites of Santa Barbara County, which remind him of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia grape-growing region of Italy. While he truly respects Italian tradition, he doesn't go strictly by the book. Instead, he makes the wines with a nod to how wine is viewed in Italian culture, meaning every wine is made with food in mind. Or as Mr. Clifton likes to put it, "Wine is an extension of the plate." Read his review of the wines he tasted here.
"After explaining the history of the grape, Steve and Chrystal explained the striking similarities between the geography and climate of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy and the Honea Vineyard in the heart of the Santa Ynez Valley AVA in the Santa Barbara wine country. The Santa Barbara County coastline juts in an east-west direction, unlike the coastal mountains from Alaska to Chile. The unique positioning of the local mountains and the valley flames the love-hate relationship between the cool ocean breezes from the west and the warm desert winds from the east, much as the cold northern weather from the Italian Alps and Dolomites battles with the warm air from the Adriatic Sea to the south of Friuli. This intermediate Santa Ynez microclimate offers a combination of cool nights for acidic balance, warm days for grape growth and a long growing season, ideal for Italian varietals." Click here to read the full article.
"In my fit but aimless 20's I hiked in Europe's mountains, my backpack stocked with nutrition bars. At every turn I encountered hale and jolly locals picnicking on salami and triple-cream cheese. I decided then and there that pleasure must be nutritious. Here are my favorite foods for springtime meanderings, all now made in the USA." She asked sommelier Heather Branch to recommend wines for her perfect picnic. Their choice for a white? Palmina Tocai Friulano, "a crisp, charming white."
Steve Clifton, half of the team at Pinot powerhouse Brewer-Clifton, keeps this Lompoc-based label devoted to Italian varietals as a side project. This take on a native Friulian grape effort, which comes from Clifton's equivalent of an all-Italian varietal estate vineyard, outpaces many of its Italian counterparts. Intense aromas of bitter almonds, white flowers and dense peach, with a gripping finish. The lush texture will really blossom with a bit of time - or decanting.
Earlier this year, we had none-too-kind words for American Pinot Grigio. Would that we had tasted this specimen from winemaker Steve Clifton, also of Brewer-Clifton. From a spot in the Los Alamos Hills, he was getting an astounding 2 tons of fruit per acre, low even by Napa Cab standards. That was "too intense," so it's now closer to four. But still intense: With compelling peach pit and citrus notes, and a vibrant mineral backbone, this all stainless-steel aged wine has forceful, dense flavors that stand in bold defiance against the monotony of its Grigionic counterparts. He cooks! He surfs! He makes wine! "Nine winemakers from Santa Barbara to Paso Robles, who also happen to be dedicated surfers, converged at the beach to talk wines and waves with Wine Enthusiast. “Both surfing and winemaking have given me a relationship with nature, to understand its cycles, seasonal changes, how the earth moves and breathes,” said Steve Clifton of Palmina." Click here to read the complete article.
Wall Street Journal wine writers Dorothy
Gaiter and John Brecher recently wrote about the “hidden treasures”
that can be found on restaurants wine lists, calling their experience
“The Refosco Lesson”. Having enjoyed Refosco in their
younger years, they saw Palmina Mattia (55% Refosco, 30%
Cabernet Franc, 15% Merlot) on a wine menu in a restaurant recently.
“We ordered it, of course, and it was outstanding, with lusty
earthiness and real vibrancy. We had never seen this wine before,
and there’s a good reason for that: The winery made only 280
cases and most went to restaurants. Only a small percentage found
its way to retailers.”
Jessica Forsyth met with Chrystal recently and put the history of Palmina in the context of Italian-American history: "...their winery in Santa Barbara County is as Italian as an American winery can get." "Palmina winery has come to be respected not only for the quality of its wines, but also for the ambassadorial approach to promoting Italian culture through wine." Click here to read the full article.
Corie Brown met with Steve at the winery: Palmina "makes an Arneis, from the grape variety native to Piedmont; Malvasia Bianca in the Friuli style; three vineyard-designated Pinot Grigios; a Tocai Friulano; a Traminer; a blend of Refosco, Cabernet Franc and Merlot he calls Mattia; two Nebbiolos; two Barberas; a Sangiovese; a Dolcetto; a Savoia, which is a blend of Nebbiolo, Syrah, and Barbera; a blend of Sangiovese and Merlot he named Alisos, after the vineyard where he sources the grapes; and a dessert wine called Santita made from Malvasia Bianca raisins. Why so many wines? Clifton smiles, chuckles, then shrugs, saying that, obviously, he hasn't been following a business plan. "We're excitable," he says, referring to the partnership between himself and his wife, Chrystal, who came to work for him in 2000. Business turned personal and they were married three years ago. "We find something we like and then we've got to add it to the list," Clifton says. "We were married in Friuli, so we've got to make Tocai Friulano. Weeding wines out, making fewer varietals, um, we're not very successful at that." Please click here to read the full article.
"Palmina is the remarkable operation of Steve Clifton, who produces 10,000 cases of Italian-inspired wines. Having done enough understudy/homework in Italy, he has met the challenge of finding single vineyards in California's Central Coast planted with Italian varietals. He is fashioning the finest dry Italian-styled whites in the new world!" |
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Palmina’s
wines were tasted recently by Josh Raynolds of Stephen Tanzer’s
International Wine Cellar.
What
might be the ultimate honor for a winery that is solely dedicated
to crafting wines from Italian varietal grapes grown in Santa Barbara
County? Having their wines included as a gift from President Obama
to Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano at our President’s
first G8 summit might just top the list. And that is just what happened
last week for Chrystal and Steve Clifton’s Palmina winery.
The
entire Palmina gang went to Sondrio, Italy for the Nebbiolo
Grapes Convegne Internazionale in March. Steve and Chrystal
presented several Palmina Nebbiolo wines:
Saveur
Magazine came for a visit to “the Ghetto”, and
writer Georgia Freedman was a bit surprised! “When I arrived
on a bright fall day at the address Clifton had given me for Palmina
Wines, I was sure I'd come to the wrong place. After driving past
miles of steep vineyards and hilly grazing lands, I ended up at
an industrial park, gazing at rows of prefabricated gray-and-blue
steel warehouses. Palmina looked more like a place to buy office
carpet than a winery, but when I walked inside, it was clear I'd
come to the right place: workers were busily picking through freshly
delivered grapes, readying them to be loaded into a crushing machine.”
She also was able to taste Palmina’s wines, as well as a sampling
of those from other “ghettositas”. Read the article
The
January issue of Gourmet Magazine was a “Special
Italian-American Issue”, with all sorts of fantastic recipes.
It also featured an article called “Rosso di California”,
with conversations with Chrystal about Palmina’s vision. Writer
James Rodewald finished the article with another of Chrystal’s
mantras “As I tasted….Chrystal Clifton’s words
rang in my ears: “Italian wines do not go with wine. They
go with food.” She’s right, these are not wines for
tasting. They’re wines for drinking with a meal.” Read
the entire excerpt 
We
were thrilled to see that the San Francisco Chronicle recently
listed our 2006 Barbera from the Honea Vineyard as one of their
“Top 100 Wines of 2008”!
Robert
Parker had some kind things to say in the December 2008 Wine
Advocate:
Wine
critic Dennis Schaefer recently tasted through a few of our wines
and noted: 
Steve
and Chrystal hosted a Seminar & Tasting on Tocai Friulano
at the winery, comparing Italian wines from Friuli with several
different styles of the wine that we made from the 2007 harvest.
Wine Imbiber was there to take notes:
The
April 2008 edition of "O" had a nice and appropriate mention
of Palmina. In the Food section, writer Celia Barbour outlines her
perfect picnic: 
On
the Menu: 
A
Recipe for Success
It'll
take more than amore to shine