When William Kelley mentioned a winemaker in the Santa Rita Hills that was “Santa Barbara’s answer to Vincent Dauvissat”, we were naturally curious. The surprisingly cool climate Sta. Rita Hills AVA, roughly halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, is dominated, unusually for California’s West Coast, by valleys than run East West. These natural airflow inlets channel cool pacific breezes to the vineyards– thus allowing for long hang times and providing an innate freshness in the wines.
Ryan Deovlet (pron: Devlet) might have been bitten by the flavour bug while sampling single estate coffee in Hawaii, but his attention soon turned to wine. Winemaking stints abroad and at home, under some excellent tutelage (Stephen Dooley and David Ramey two notable examples) convinced him of a vinous path. And so it was that when a chance encounter with Richard Sanford led to the offer of some fruit from Sanford’s La Encantada vineyard, his future opened up before him.
Read MoreThat was back in 2008 and La Encantada remains a constant in the Deovlet range. Impressed by his wines, Sanford then upped the ante in 2011, offering Ryan access to a prime parcel of the original 1971 plantings of the iconic Sanford & Benedict vineyard, another contract that continues to this day.
Though each sits in the southern sector of the Sta. Rita Hills these two vineyards produce strikingly different wines. With a North-eastern exposure La Encantada has full access to the cool pacific breezes and tends to produce grapes with thicker skins and more pigment, which in turn results in wines with a natural density, plenty of structure and darker fruit tones. Sanford & Benedict occupies a more sheltered position, which in combination with the older vines produces wines with more mineral inflection, enhanced floral notes and wonderful textures. The reds have beautifully defined red fruit flavours, while the whites combine minerality, fruit and depth in equal measure.
To these two parcels, Deovlet has added the Zotovich vineyard, a site grafted onto old vines by Steve Zotovich in 2004. Nestled into the North-eastern section of the AVA the sandy soils here combine with a naturally thin-skinned clone of Pinot Noir to produce the most aromatic and delicate wine in the range, while the Chardonnay is all energy and lacy white fruited purity.
The Deovlet philosophy is that the winemaker’s signature should be the absence of one – and as such, these wines, in both colours, offer up hugely transparent renditions of their respective sites. For those looking to dip a toe in, the Santa Barbara bottlings offer up a blend of the various Deovlet sites, put together to offer earlier drinking, while maintaining the house style of energy and tension.
Across the range the wines are full of life, refreshing acidities, and naturally complex profiles, often tending more towards the mineral, floral and savoury than out-and-out fruit.
Kelly’s comment was an apt one. If you’re looking for fine boned, refreshing, interesting Pinot and Chardonnays that repay time in the glass, Deovlet ought to be enormously appealing.
“Ryan Deovlet is one of the most exciting young winemakers in the Central Coast... His wines, which emerge from some of the top sites in Santa Barbara, are impeccable, pure and wonderfully transparent to site.” Antonio Galloni, vinous.com