Wines

The wine making process starts by careful selection of optimized harvesting conditions. The wonderful and mostly predictable weather in the Santa Ynez Valley lends itself to wonderful fruit ripening. We are located in the warm (Region II), eastern portion of the Santa Ynez Valley. Meadowlark Vineyards has the ideal climate and soil types for Bordeaux and Rhone varietals. The cool mornings and evenings in this region allow for prolonged fruit maturation. All our grapes our hand harvested to ensure quality.

Meadowlark Vineyard’s wine making process is conducted in a controlled temperature facility. We look to extract the most wonderful aromas, taste and color from our grapes by gentle processing and press techniques. Primary fermentation is carried out in small, 1 to 2 ton, open vats that allow for easy and frequent punch downs. After gentle pressing, wine is transferred to American and French oak barrels for a 12 month period. Malolactic fermentation is accomplished once wine is transferred to barrels. From the final aging of these wines, only the best barrel selections are selected for final bottling. Our wines are unfiltered and after bottling wine is further aged for a minimum of 10 months prior to release.

Our wines are  a limited production. Our first release consisted of a total of 131 cases. Our 2006 Syrah production was 230 cases. For 2007 we anticipate a total case production of 1200. We will plateau at this production level for a few years. Since we are a truly boutique product, only Wine Club members will be able to have access to all of our wines. Join us now to ensure first choice of our wine selections and to receive periodic updates on wines from Meadowlark Vineyards.