Visiting Liquid Farm

After tasting the 2015 Liquid Farm White Hills Chardonnay that we really enjoyed, my husband and I wanted very much to visit their winery to learn how they made their Chardonnay.
The tasting room for Liquid Farm is located in Lompoc. We were familiar with the Industrial Wine Movement in Lompoc, having visited Steve Clifton at Palmina in 2015. We drove north out of Los Angeles on Interstate 101, where the mudslides had occurred and found that it had been totally cleared. Evidence of the fires were visible. It took us about 3 hours to make the journey and met up with Jeff Nelson, owner of Liquid Farm. He brought us to the "back of the house" to meet with winemaker, James Sparks.

Jeff let us taste their Rosé of Mourvédre that was still in the tank and awaiting bottling. James explained that the Mourvédre is grown and harvested specifically to make rosé and they do not use saignee to create their rosé. We also tasted their very limited edition Four Chardonnay. I got a chance to speak with James and he mentioned that they like to keep the pH of their Chardonnay close to 3 and the titratable acids around 7. We are in that ballpark with our Chardonnay! James makes all his Chardonnay in oak barrels and lets each barrel speak to him about the need for bâtonnage. I am totally on the same page with James about listening to the wine and doing only what it tells you to do. Winemaking is never a formulaic process. Jeff also told us that we only have one chance to get the little details right before we release our first vintage so my husband is going back to the drawing board with our labels and our logo. They also seal their bottles with wax and during our visit, Ravi was painstakingly involved in doing this task.

Our visit to Liquid Farm came to an end in no time at all! We decided to go to one of our favorite places to have lunch--Industrial Eats in Buellton. Buellton is the place that was made famous in the movie "Sideways", it is also home to the original "Andersens Pea Soup". Jeff gave us some driving directions on Santa Rosa Road that would take us to Buellton and our destination.
It was after lunch and on a Monday, so we had no problems finding a seat and put in our order. The special for Monday was patty melt so my husband and I decided to split that sandwich and just in case we ordered their Korean style wings. We assumed that the wings were the usual, small plate of 6 chicken wings. Our patty melt came first with a huge half of romaine that was lightly dressed and delicious. Half way through our HUGE sandwich, the chicken wings arrived. We looked at the plate and told our server, "What were we thinking?" To which she replied, "I'll get you a takeout box". Apparently, this phenomenon of over ordering was not new to her!

We had a great day trip to Lompoc, made some new friends, learned a lot, had a great lunch and headed back to Los Angeles, our trip to California was drawing to a close. On this Monday, we were told by our friends in Connecticut that they had 4-7 inches of unexpected snow on the shoreline!