Joyce Vineyards Albarino 2022
-
Enthusiast
Wine
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
This brisk and steely Spanish style Albariño is vividly fresh with heighten aromatics andr acy acidity. Crisp and refreshing with tart green apple, white peach and zesty citrus fruits, along with wet stones, apricot pit and a mouth watering saline making for a great summer sipper.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of grapefruit and mandarin-orange juice splashed over melon and dusted in chalk make for a compelling nose on this bottling. Talc-like chalkiness gives texture to the palate, where apple blossom and Pink Lady apple-flesh flavors ride a brisk acidity.
Other Vintages
2021-
Enthusiast
Wine
-
Wong
Wilfred
Joyce Wine Company is a result of the family’s interest in Monterey County’s diverse terroirs. Minimal cellar intervention, on-site production and bottling frame the goals of Joyce; to showcase the impact of climate and soil on local varietals. Vineyards benefit from a unique climate during the growing season that further showcase fresh, clean and mineral driven wines with a sense of place. The deep, cold waters of Monterey Bay keep the nights cool making the growing season long enough to ripen fruit at a proper pace while maintaining finesse and structure.
Harvest at moderate ripeness from their own 6 acre estate along with partnership from trusted local farmers allows the winery to control the quality of the fruit before production. During fermentation, decisions on yeast sourcing, sulfur usage and filtration are made as needed aiming for typicity and honesty. In an effort to further guide their wines to their best potential, Joyce also uses neutral fermentation and aging vessels to limit its influence on the fruit.
Most American fathers and sons play baseball in the front yard… others make wine together. It began when Francis Joyce followed his passion by pirating several European cuttings in the early 1980’s to a small vineyard in the Carmel Valley. Francis’ son, Russel, grew up running between those wines. Russel now showcases the area’s premier AVA’s such as the Santa Lucia Highlands, Carmel Valley, and Arroyo Seco. Russell is classic and minimal in his approach to winemaking. He utilizes this approach to create wines of varietal purity and elegance while focusing on the local grapes of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Bright and aromatic with distinctive floral and fruity characteristics, Albariño has enjoyed a surge in popularity and an increase in plantings over the last couple of decades. Thick skins allow it to withstand the humid conditions of its homeland, Rías Baixas, Spain, free of malady, and produce a weighty but fresh white. Somm Secret—Albariño claims dual citizenship in Spain and Portugal. Under the name Alvarinho, it thrives in Portugal’s northwestern Vinho Verde region, which predictably, borders part of Spain’s Rías Baixas.
Named after the dramatic, seasonal river of rain and snowmelt that cuts through the upper elevations of the Santa Lucia Mountains, the Arroyo Seco AVA extends east from the resultant mountain gorge, and into the rural and warm Salinas Valley. During the growing season, cool and damp Pacific Ocean air penetrates the gorge and flows into the valley, creating a cool evening respite for vineyards after a hot summer day. This natural water-release has also created a subterranean aquifer, which helps set the foundation of the AVA's boundaries and supplies the vineyards with water.
Arroyo Seco was actually home to the first commercial vineyard in California, called Mission Ranch, which was owned and propogated by the Mirassou family in the 1960s.
Chardonnay is most widely grown here. But as one of Monterey’s warmer regions, Arroyo Seco enjoys the highest praise for its reds, namely Bordeaux blends.
Arroyo Seco is one of the oldest AVAs in California, its status granted in the early 1980s, and also remains one of its smallest.