Spiltwine

Why is it that there are never martian sightings in the large metropolis of the world, rather UFO’s seem to prefer the nice grassy fields of Kansas or Oklahoma? If this is in fact true, and E.T.’s do like farm fields and the like, you won’t be surpised to hear martians have landed in the fairly rural industrial estate of Santa Maria…and I spent my last weekend with their leader!

Luckily enough the only probing that went on was from a wine thief…….into barrels (you sickos)

Martians!!! AHHHHHH!

Mike Roth, is the new winemaker at Martian Ranch and Vineyard’s  and we spent the morning tasting through the trials and tribulations of the year.

Mike and I actually met randomly when he was making wine at Koehler about five years ago, now he is dividing his winemaking duties between Demetria and Martian.

Although she wasn’t there this past weekend I’ve also met Nan Helgeland, the owner of Martian, as well. She or rather the brand is an easy one to remember as the labels are a lovely bright orange. Nan even had the foresight of making some orange branded spit cups, I thought I had one laying about here somewhere but sods laws…when you need it, it ain’t there!

By the way the name Martian doesn’t come from any sort of extra terrestial beliefs from Nan (none that are publicly known) but rather a conglomeration of her two kids names: Martin and Ian. She does allude to Martians on the label though and has a little doodle of a space invader on some of the labels.

Mike Roth and Martian's beehive landing pods

The vineyards, located in Los Alamos, are on their third year of biodynamic transformation, they will be official next year sometime. As for the wine….well Mike is somewhat different in his approach but that’s in a good way.

He has taken on the whole low interference/low alcohol way of thinking (most of what I tasted was around 13% mark) and is very interested in the natural side of winemaking.

I am not going to go into much detail defining natural wine here, as it is interpreted differently, but for Mike he uses very little, to no sulphur in his wines.

Here’s a little tidbit on Mike’s philosophy….try not to get brain washed.

As for the wines, my favorites were the Grenache and Syrah. The Grenache was fragrant, light and delicate. Rather nice and made completely naturally. The rosé especially had a beautiful soft pink hue and a lovely fresh nose of berry fruits.

The Syrahs too were impressive. Martian has a couple of different clones, 99 and one from Alban…99 had a distinct olive tapenade, more dense/heady aromas while the Alban (they called it that, I don’t think it’s the official name) is more aromatic, with perfumed berry aromas. Individually the two were impressive. They will most likely end up in a blend though and I found they would complement each other immensely.

I forgot to also mention all the wines are estate grown and Martian has some interesting grapes planted, there is an Albariño, Grenache Blanc and some Tempranillo…

For me though the stands out were definitely the Rhône reds.  Look out for this winery…their labels are easily spotted on the shelf, like some sort of homing device. Most importantly though, you’ll be impressed with what’s inside.