Team C&J
This Winery Is Permanently Closed.
Winery Rating
Located at:
19 East Carmel Valley Road
Carmel Valley, CA 93924
Wine Club Rating
Price Range For Tasting
It takes a certain type of person to become a winemaker. Life in the vineyard is backbreaking work, especially during harvest season. It takes a bit of a gambler’s mentality – how will the vintage turn out? And it takes a certain artistry to take fruit and turn it into one of the most beloved items on the planet.
For those who don’t come from winemaking families but decide to make wine their life, it’s almost as if there’s a Cinderella moment where the glass slipper that is wine just seems to fit. And the resulting ah-ha moment comes as, oh, this is what I’m supposed to do with my life. And then, oh (shoulder shrug), I’m actually pretty good at it.
Winemaker Ian Brand is one of those folks. Before finding his way to wine, he held a few, well, eclectic jobs that allowed him to live the unshackled nomadic life he was drawn to. Ian was an Alaska grizzly bear tour guide, a carpenter, Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador, ski bum, and had a stint working for Utah’s Fish and Game Wildlife Service before he found himself working in the cellar at Randall Grahm’s Bonny Doon Vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
For someone who had no formal winemaking training before finding himself at Bonny Doon and who didn’t study enology at UC Davis, like so many of California’s top winemakers, Ian Brand is doing pretty well for himself.
In 2018, Ian was named The San Francisco Chronicle’s ‘Winemaker of the Year’, which is a pretty big deal considering The Chronicle is the only newspaper in the country to have not one but two full-time wine critics on staff and a local beat that includes all of Northern and Central California wine country. Brand was also named a “40 Under 40: America’s Tastemakers” by Wine Enthusiast.
Capturing the character and the history of Monterey County, along with a few scattered but historic vineyards that sit on the margins in Santa Clara County, is important to Brand. He channels this energy into the three distinct wine labels he makes in his warehouse in Salinas: La P’tit Paysan, La Marea, and I. Brand & Family.
We tasted a number of good wines at the I. Brand & Family tasting room in Carmel Valley, including:
As you can see, we gave all of the wines scores in the low 90s and high 80s. but we’d like to share a little more about the Le P’Tit Paysan, “Old Vines”, Cabernet Sauvignon from San Benito County.
Ian loves working with old family vineyards. And the Le P’Tit Paysan label, which has been dubbed ‘Village’ wines reimagined for California, provides the perfect platform for sharing the bounty and history of these vineyards.
The grapes for 2020 Le P’Tit Paysan, “Old Vines”, Cabernet Sauvignon were sourced from
Siletto Family Vineyards, is one of California’s cooler vineyards. Not cooler in the sense that the vineyard sees diurnal temperature shifts, although it does sit in coastal San Benito County, but cool as in winemakers love the sheer variety of out-of-the-box grapes that owner John Siletto’s father planted here in the 1980s after he acquired the property from grape grower Bob Wheeler.
All in all, the property has 32 varieties. Here are just a few:
The Cabernet Sauvignon grapes used in this bottling were planted in 1974, making them one of the earliest plantings in the area.
This Cabernet is medium-full bodied, but just 13.1% alcohol. The old vines give structure to a palate that is ripe yet mineral driven and fresh. Abundant black fruits, lavender, and other dried herbs personify Brand’s vision of a new California wine that’s still in touch with its storied, agricultural past. This wine is both classic and contemporary in its styling.
If you’re looking for a California wine tasting experience in a relaxed, rural atmosphere with excellent wines and a low-key but cozy tasting room, add I.Brand & Family wines to your list. Ian Brand’s wine just keeps getting better and better, and we look forward to trying future vintages of these Rhone-inspired wines.
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