Hobo Wines
Hobo Wines
Kenny and his wife Lynne were part of the original new wave California movement at the turn of the century. Their initial concept was to “make two barrels of wine, without a plan or any responsibilities to worry about.” Fast forward 20 years and their plan is to make 1,000 barrels of wine without too much of a plan but a bunch of responsibilities. Taking their fruit mainly from Sonoma and up into Mendocino means their wines are lighter, fresher and happily, more affordable than most of the quality wines coming out of California today. We are very excited to be representing them here in the UK.
Click on wines below for further details and overview of tasting notes.
The 8th vintage of White Light continues to be fun, easy drinking, summery, and affordable. Our goals have stayed the same - bottle something fresh with acid and some mineral and retain that sort of salty, briny character that the Tocai Friulano has, but tone it down with the fruit and aromatics of Riesling and Verdelho. This is pretty much what you will find in the bottle with added leaness from the Sauvignon Blanc.
The 2022 is 42% Tocai Friulano from Mendocino, 18% Riesling from Arroyo Seco, 17% Verdelho from Suisun Valley, 15% Albariño from Borden Ranch, and 8% Sauvignon Blanc from Potter Valley. Each of the lots were picked early in the season with brix numbers ranging from 19˚ to 21˚. The final wine is 11.6% alcohol. Bottled at the beginning of December 2022.
White Light was inspired by a trip to the vortexes of Sedona, Arizona, but maybe a little Velvet Underground too. I’m not that much into New Age thinking, but tell me something will feel good and I’m a believer.
Certainly ready and fun to drink now, but gains complexity with time. Kenny L
The 2022 Camp Chardonnay is 83% Chardonnay, from the Lloyd Vineyard in Alexander Valley off of Soda Rock Road, 11% from our new planting of Chardonnay at the Vecino Vineyard in Potter Valley, 1% from Prior in Sonoma Valley, 2% from Lolonis in Redwood Valley, 1% from Brosseau in Chalone, 1% from Amaya Ridge in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and 1% Viognier from Morrison Ranch in Suisun Valley.
The various lots were fermented in a combination of stainless steel tanks and neutral French oak barrels, then racked to all older French oak barrels and left sur lies until the completion of the malolactic fermentation, and finally brought back to stainless for the complete blend and bottling.
This is a bright fresh wine. More Chablis than Burgundy and delicious for it.