Calera Wine Company
If anyone ever tells you no one intelligent owns a winery (yes, we’ve heard that statement) give them Josh Jensen as an example. Educated at both Yale and Oxford Jensen learned to make wine in Burgundy in the late 1970′s which makes this winery an outstanding winery to choose for a wine club. In fact Jensen was the first in a new breed of winemakers, those highly educated few who choose literally any profession on the planet and have chosen to make wine.
One of the original founders of the AVA, he purchased land in 1974 with the stated goal of making world class wine on the Monterrey Peninsula. Quality is big draw here, wine is always of a high quality and in good years it can be truly mind blowing. One of California’s first Pinot Noir success stories Calera Wine Company helped lead to the Sideways revolution which we’ve seen over previous years. Calera has also been at the forefront of the movement toward Viognier as a white wine grape of choice in the state of California. A rich and textured wine comes from Viognier and it does well in a variety of climates from Pacific Ocean cooled sites on the coast all the way to warm summers in Paso Robles.