Wine collecting is inevitably built on hard lessons. How do you know if that case of Chateau Such and Such you bought in 2012 was a winner or a costly mistake? What would you tell your 2005 self about what’s in your cellar today? How would you describe the palate you now possess? How would you convey how your tastes have evolved? 

If only there were time machines for that sort of thing. Instead, you rely on precedent. You take it on faith that crus and first growths are collectible because they’re collected, and have been since you even took a notion to start a cellar. So that’s where you start.

Then you look to experts like me — but I have to admit that as a critic, about 85% of the wines I taste are new releases, often imprecise in their youth, casting shadows and offering mere hints as to where the form might be. 

The good news is that part of my expertise is in interpreting a wine’s promise. I know when a wine’s ripeness is out in front of its skis, or when it lacks the stuffing or the structure for the long haul. I know what an undercarriage should taste and (more importantly) feel like. In short, I know what balance is, and balance is at the heart of longevity and a healthy cellar evolution. That also means seeking out wineries with impeccable viticulture; they’re the ones, after all, who work hardest not to fuck up their fruit in the cellar.

So this is the California installment of a series in which I’ll recommend wineries you should be collecting, but may not be on your radar. (I’ll do the same for Oregon and Washington State.) And unlike a lot of California wineries, who prefer making wines for right now and don’t necessarily build for the future, these producers are preoccupied with their wines’ ageability. 

Ashes & Diamonds

Kashy Khaledi is the son of Darioush Khaledi; his Oak Knoll winery, Ashes & Diamonds, is less than three miles from his father’s winery, Darioush. But where the Darioush wines are grand and flamboyant, A&D wines show impeccable restraint. All the vineyards they own and lease are farmed organically, and most are farmed biodynamically. Steve Matthiasson manages the viticulture. 

Diane Snowden Seysses makes the wine — she’s married to Jeremy Seysses, a guy whose Burgundy estate (Domaine Dujac) is renowned for its finesse, and a good indicator that her own wines are made for future enjoyment. She’s also what you might call a regenerative warrior, and has, since 2017, made it her life’s work to fight climate change. The net effect is wines that run against ripeness trends. For collecting purposes, you’d do well to focus on the Bordeaux-inspired blends. These are structured, exquisitely balanced, rarely over 14% in alcohol and built for the cellar in every sense. 

Centennial Mountain

Centennial Mountain is brought to you by the team at Rhys, cool climate specialists of the North Coast, based in—and mostly focused on—the mercurial terroirs of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Their varietal focus had always been French. But owner Kevin Harvey and his winemaking team of Jeff Brinkman and vineyard manager Javier Tapia have spent years obsessing over Italian varieties, asking themselves “why haven’t there been great Italianate wines grown and made in California?” 

In 2017, Harvey answered his own challenge, assembling vine selections for a new project originally called Aeris (and now named for the mountain on which it’s planted). Tapia planted Nebbiolo, Barbera, Zinfandel (Primitivo), and Nerello Capuccio as well as Nerello Mascalese and Carricante—the latter had never been planted broadly before. The site is a jaw-dropping monopole set on a ridgetop in the Coast Range west of Rockpile, privy to inland heat and coastal influence. It’s early days, but the reds in particular are proving to be remarkably precocious, Italian to their core in structure with ferrous, firm tannins.

Domaine de la Côte

Few estates in California are more dedicated to making ageworthy wines than Domaine de la Côte. In fact, when I look at my old tasting notes from the last decade, phrases like ‘restrained’, ‘lay it down,’ and ‘give it time’ are prominent. Sashi Moorman and Rajat Parr took this on in 2013 as an estate project. That estate was composed of vineyards that Moorman had planted in 2007 (for Evening Land) on the far western edge of the Sta. Rita Hills — radical, high density plantings at Memorious, Bloom’s Field, Siren’s Call, and La Côte. (Two vineyard sites, Sous la Chêne and Juliet, are young, but coming into view.) All are extreme sites with blast force exposures to the Pacific. In these wines you can taste the skin-thickening winds and salinity, a minerality signature that few other places in California can speak to.

The sites’ uniqueness obliged Moorman and Parr to build these wines to age from year one. Others are catching up to the style, but no one was making wines like these before these guys started. The chardonnays, reductive and leesy, are fiercely savory, while the pinots, captive to whole cluster ferments and minimal overt oak, cast a comparable savoriness. Both grow only more complex in the cellar. 

Hirsch Vineyard

Much has been written about Sonoma’s True Coast, but no one on earth knows it better than David Hirsch and his daughter Jasmine. David purchased 1,000 acres on a ridgetop near the ocean set at about 1,400 feet, and planted just 72 acres of mostly Pinot Noir over the years beginning in 1980. Once a source for many of the great Sonoma Pinot houses like Williams Selyem, Littorai, and Kistler, Hirsch started his own winery in 2002—Jasmine now makes the wines.  

The geology of Hirsch Vineyard might be described as faultline chaos. The ocean is less than three miles away, and the property is basically straddling the San Andreas Fault, which has been jostling California soils and subsoils for many millennia. The Hirsches have isolated 67 different blocks reflecting the resulting soil diversity, and make blends which bring harmony to gruff edges, while leaving plenty as single vineyards to elucidate the terroir. Jasmine, meanwhile, has spent the last decade parsing her vineyard map and the wines drawn from it.  Based on this, she has recently published a number of useful tools, including drinking windows for her collectors.

Racines

The pedigree at Racines is astounding. About a decade ago the de Montille family—Volnay royalty in Burgundy’s Cotes de Beaune, led by Etienne de Montille and his chef de cave, American Brian Sieve—sought out a project on American soil. 

After an exhaustive search in California and Oregon they settled on the Sta. Rita Hills in Santa Barbara County, founding Racines in 2018. One year later they had the prescience to add  partner Rodolphe Peters of Champagne Pierre Peters to start a sparkling wine program. The team has been drawing from most of the cru vineyards in the region, while their own, de Montille Vineyard, comes of age. 

It’s commonplace to heap praise onto an American Pinot Noir or Chardonnay by calling it Burgundian. I’m happy to report these aren’t, really. They’re not fussy, recalcitrant, distant, or in any way closed. On the contrary, these Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs are sunny and open, as if the principals are embracing their new digs, while the sparkling wines are refined and radiant. Together they exhibit a self-possession and out-of-the-box grace that guarantees a long cellar life.