Wine Down Thursday: Sandlands Vineyards
September 3 from 6 to 7:30pm
Sampler: $25/person

Tegan Passalacqua has spent his career listening to California's oldest vines, and Sandlands is where that conversation becomes wine. Our next Wine Down tasting traces a quiet rebellion against the state's era of big, jammy wines, returning instead to a more honest question: what does this specific patch of earth actually taste like in the glass?

Passalacqua hunts down heritage sites planted in decomposed granite: sandy, mineral-driven soils that force vines to struggle, and struggle beautifully. The result isn't power for power's sake. It's balance, tension, and a sense of place you can taste in every glass.

Across these three wines, you'll trace California's viticultural memory—vines that predate Prohibition, farmed by families for generations—reframed through Tegan's obsessive site-specificity. Each bottle is a rebuttal to the idea that California means only ripeness and richness. This is terroir-driven winemaking, vintage after vintage, proving that the state's oldest vineyards still have something new to say.

Featured Wines:
2023 Chenin Blanc
This is a blend of two Sierra Foothills sites: Judge Bell Vineyard and Story Vineyard. Its core comes from a head-trained, dry-farmed, own-rooted Chenin block planted in 1979 at 1,500 feet, rooted in iron-rich volcanic soils with quartz and decomposed granite. A second vineyard, planted in 2020 at 1,900 feet on black gneiss and blue schist, brings a higher-elevation counterpoint. A distinctive, site-conscious California Chenin that joins old-vine texture with bright, lifted detail.

2025 Mourvèdre Rosé
Sandlands' 2025 Rosé of Mourvèdre comes from a historic Contra Costa County vineyard, planted in 1922 in wind-blown Delhi sand. The own-rooted, head-trained, dry-farmed vines—now more than a century old—give the wine a singular old-vine provenance. The 2025 is rich and textural, with notes of red licorice, fresh strawberry, blood-orange zest, lavender, and a bright, deeply flavorful finish. It is a serious, food-minded rosé, but one defined more by freshness and smooth, layered contours than overt tannic grip.

2023 Mataro
The 2023 Mataro comes from Oakley Road Vineyard in Contra Costa County, where vines planted in the 1920s grow in the region’s distinctive wind-blown Delhi sand. This historic Mataro—Mourvèdre by another name—shows the depth and character old California vineyards can deliver without sacrificing clarity or freshness. The palate is beautifully layered: inky dark fruit, plum, licorice, incense, new leather, and floral, savory notes unfold with impressive finesse. Rather than heavy, it is lifted and composed, carrying its concentration through a long, textural finish. A vivid, soulful expression of old-vine Contra Costa Mataro, built for the table and for aging.