2022 Samuel Louis Smith - Escolle Vineyard Gamay (750ml) SHELF

Sam Smith wears two hats in the California wine world. By day, he serves as head winemaker at Morgan Winery in the Santa Lucia Highlands, where he oversees production of more than thirty thousand cases alongside founder Dan Lee. On the side, working out of a shared garage in Salinas, he crafts a much smaller, more personal range of wines under his own name, producing roughly fifteen hundred cases split across eight different cuvées. That contrast, industrial scale by day and hands-on minimalism by night, shapes his approach to sourcing fruit from remote, high-elevation sites across Monterey and the Central Coast.

Escolle Vineyard sits in the northern Santa Lucia Highlands, an eighteen-mile bench that divides the mountain range from the Salinas Valley floor below. Cooled by proximity to Monterey Bay, its granitic loam soils have proven surprisingly well suited to Gamay, a variety still new to the appellation. For the 2022 vintage, Smith fermented the fruit using seventy-five percent whole clusters and twenty-five percent carbonic maceration, then aged the wine entirely in neutral oak to preserve its bright, unadorned character.

This Gamay pours a vivid, almost electric ruby-purple and opens with rose petal, cracked pepper, and savory herbs, joined by raspberry candy, cured meat, and damp earth. The palate stays light and lively, with crunchy fruit and fine, easygoing tannins. It suits a charcuterie board, roast duck with plum sauce, or a wedge of soft brie.