Vinography Unboxed: Week of 4/3/22

Courtesy of Vinography, A Wine Blog, April 9, 2022 by Alder Yarrow

“Hello and welcome to my weekly dig through the pile of wine samples that show up asking to be tasted. I’m pleased to bring you the latest installment of Vinography Unboxed, where I highlight some of the better bottles that have crossed my doorstep recently….

Before we take a detour to France, let’s pause for a moment and appreciate someone who has been making wine since 2007, but who most people have never heard of. Winemaker Carlos Caruncho grew up in Cuba where he was born, attended university in Russia, and defected from Cuba at the age of 27. After living in Canada for a year, he crossed the border into America and finally received refugee status in 1992.

That same year he began work as an assistant for [a Burgundy-trained winemaker in Northern California], where he worked for five years. After a stint abroad (tasting rather than Making wine) Caruncho returned to California and took over a 45-year-old abandoned vineyard in the Sierra Foothills, coaxing it back to some semblance of life through organic dry farming under the name Arquils Wines (Carlos’ given name, and the Spanish rendition of Achilles).

Caruncho makes his wines with minimal intervention, using natural yeasts, no racking, neutral oak, no filtering, and no added sulfites, using 50% whole cluster for the white wines. The Sauvignon Blanc Caruncho sent me is one of the more exciting examples I’ve tasted from California in some time. It’s full of electricity and has a wonderful personality. Find some if you can. This will be a producer to watch.”

~ Alder Yarrow, Vinography Blog, author of The Essence of Wine, an award-winning book, called one of the best wine books of 2015 by the New York Times, and author of Sonoma and Marin County chapter of the behemoth, Opus Vino a comprehensive look at the world’s wine regions and their best wines, a finalist for the 2011 James Beard Journalism Awards.