Winemaker Notes
Returning from a bountiful trip to the market, your basket is laden with lemon curd, freshly baked baguette, jasmine white tea and tamarind paste. The old gate squeaks closed behind you as you enter the garden in the coastal morning mist. You breath it in and make your way down the path lined with river rock, pausing first to collect a few rosemary sprigs and then a ripe apricot hanging low on a branch before making your way into the warmly lit cottage.
Blend: 33% Viognier, 26% Roussanne, 22% Grenache Blanc, 11% Marsanne, 8% Clairette
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2018 Sans Liege Côtes-du-Coast takes California white wines to another place and time. Not just another white wine on the rack, this blend of white Rhone grape varieties is unique and exquisite. TASTING NOTES: This wine has a lot to offer. Enjoy its aromas and flavors of dried peach skin, rosemary, and other herbs with a rotisserie chicken over rice pilaf. (Tasted: December 5, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Enthusiast
This blend of 33% Viognier, 26% Roussanne, 22% Grenache Blanc, 11% Marsanne and 8% Clairette is an excellent display of everyday white Rhône potential along the Central Coast. Aromas of peach, buttered toast, pineapple and river stone lead into a palate that combines rich tones of roasted apple, yellow peach and lemon brioche with savory sea salts.
Full-bodied and flavorful, white Rhône blends originate from France’s Rhône Valley. Today these blends are also becoming popular in other regions. Typically some combination of Grenache Blanc, Marsanne, Roussanne and Viognier form the basis of a white Rhône blend with varying degrees of flexibility depending on the exact appellation. Somm Secret—In the Northern Rhône, blends of Marsanne and Roussanne are common but the south retains more variety. Marsanne, Roussanne as well as Bourboulenc, Clairette, Picpoul and Ugni Blanc are typical.
Paso Robles has made a name for itself as a source of supple, powerful, fruit-driven Central Coast wines. But with eleven smaller sub-AVAs, there is actually quite a bit of diversity to be found in this inland portion of California’s Central Coast.
Just east over the Santa Lucia Mountains from the chilly Pacific Ocean, lie the coolest in the region: Adelaida, Templeton Gap and (Paso Robles) Willow Creek Districts, as well as York Mountain AVA and Santa Margarita Ranch. These all experience more ocean fog, wind and precipitation compared to the rest of the Paso sub-appellations. The San Miguel, (Paso Robles) Estrella, (Paso Robles) Geneso, (Paso Robles) Highlands, El Pomar and Creston Districts, along with San Juan Creek, are the hotter, more western appellations of the greater Paso Robles AVA.
This is mostly red wine country, with Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel standing out as the star performers. Other popular varieties include Merlot, Petite Sirah, Petit Verdot, Syrah, Grenache and Rhône blends, both red and white. There is a fairly uniform tendency here towards wines that are unapologetically bold and opulently fruit-driven, albeit with a surprising amount of acidity thanks to the region’s chilly nighttime temperatures.