WE ARE SO THRILLED TO PRESENT THE WONDERFUL WINES OF MARTHA STOUMEN. This is the mixed red pack including 1 or 3 bottles (duo or six pack!).

3 bottles Post Flirtation Red - juicy and fresh, ready-to-chill Zin + Carignan banger + 3 bottles Mendocino Benchlands - post flirtations’s mature older sibling, a Nero D’Avola + Petite Sirah + Zin blend inspired by Sicily’s classic Cerasuolo di Vittoria blends.

More!

Martha Stoumen, ‘Post Flirtation’ Red, Carignan & Zinfandel, Mendocino County, CA Carignan & Zinfandel are such a balanced duo, like a pair of Sweet Valley-esque twin siblings with wildly different personalities that compliment one another in all the right ways. Zin is the “good twin”, a fruit punchy sweetheart, ripe & brambly & robust; bad boi Carignan is a fiery scrapper who could take down any other wine grape in a fight. Zin (dry-farmed on sandy, beachy soil) gives us body, alcohol & sweet spice, Carignan (grown on gravelly loam) counters with bright acid, raspy tannin & a savoury backstory. A true yin-yang situation in full effect! The grapes are each fermented & aged in stainless steel tanks for 6 months before blending, allowing them to each come of age & have their own little journey toward retaining varietal character. The end result is sturdy & poised but not without a cheeky sense of humour, a mischievious smile. We adore Post-Flirtation with a bit of a chill as an exclamation point at the end of a long day, a Beaujolais-esque summer red that veers toward the lighter side, but with enough heft to last you through dinner. Martha describes PF as a “lively hibiscus agua fresca with notes of orange peel & juicy pomegranate,” we’re also picking up some homemade blueberry pie vibes, cherry coke, sprinkle of cinnamon, pine tree-shaped air freshener hanging from the dash of a very sexy pickup truck on a hot summer night, crickets chirping, AM radio on. 

Martha Stoumen, ‘Mendocino Benchlands’, Petite Sirah & Zinfandel & Nero d’Avola, Mendocino County, CA Lighter than previous vintages in body, mind AND spirit, this breezy summer red is your chillable poolside angel, adultified CapriSun, the switched-on lovechild of a blue freezie & can of Beach Plum Lacroix. All three grapes in the blend were fermented separately in small batches (whole cluster for the Zin and Petite, destemmed for the Nero), then pressed & barrel-aged for 6 months off lees. Accounting for 40% of the blend, Petite Sirah is the star of the show here, carbonically-macerated and replete with maximum blueberry energy, though not without a moody dash of black pepper like a well-placed slow jam in a sea of summer bangers. Zin is always here for a good time, bringing juicy bright fruit like a cannonball swimming pool splash, with worldly Nero d’Avola adding a touch of sophistication to the blend. The Mendocino Benchlands red is inspired by the Italian farming tradition of grapes being planted on the poorer, uplifted soils of a given valley, with the rich valley floor soils reserved for vegetables— all the vineyards in this blend planted on those uplifted benchlands. This is a wine that feels very easy to coexist with— throw a bottle in your favourite tote bag, kick your shoes off, be like, “the only rule of today is that THERE ARE NO RULES” & see where Mendocino Benchlands takes you!

PRODUCTION & DRINKING

After apprenticing in hot, sunshine-filled places like Sicily’s famed COS, Martha Stoumen returned home to California with a mission: to grow balanced, organic wine she wanted to drink. She started with the Italian grapes she came to know and love that flourish in the sunny and dry climate of Sebastapol. Forget Napa Cabs and try her Nero d’Avola and Zinfandel. All wines organically or biodynamically farmed, hand picked and made without additions.