Winemaker Notes
Open top fermentation, barrel aged between 32 and 42 months, bottled unfined and unfiltered. Generally a blend of predominantly Mourvedre with possibly Syrah and/or some Grenache. All from their estate vineyard.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2014 The Mason also showed great. An even split of Mourvèdre and Syrah (it’s normally Mourvèdre-dominated), this rich, powerful wine has loads of blueberry and cassis-like fruit intermixed with notions of smoked herbs, graphite, and cured meats. With sweet tannins, terrific purity of fruit, and blockbuster length, it’s another awesome wine from John Alban. Drink it over the coming 10-15 years.
Full of ripe fruit, and robust, earthy goodness, Mourvèdre is actually of Spanish provenance, where it still goes by the name Monastrell or Mataro. It is better associated however, with the Red Blends of the Rhône, namely Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Mourvèdre shines on its own in Bandol and is popular both as a single varietal wine in blends in the New World regions of Australia, California and Washington. Somm Secret—While Mourvèdre has been in California for many years, it didn’t gain momentum until the 1980s when a group of California winemakers inspired by the wines of the Rhône Valley finally began to renew a focus on it.
California’s coolest wine growing area, Edna Valley excels in the production of high quality Central Coast wines like Pinot noir, Chardonnay, Rhône Blends and aromatic white wines. It has a cool Mediterranean climate and an incredibly long growing season, giving late-ripening varieties plenty of opportunity to develop great phenolic complexity.
Its northwest to southeast orientation creates a direct path for cool Pacific air and fog to penetrate the valley from the Los Osos and Morro Bay area inwards. Low hillsides of both calcareous and volcanic soils are home to much of the vineyard acreage of the Edna Valley.