The Meaning of Low-Intervention Winemaking Walk the aisles of a chain supermarket and you get a quick education on how the American food complex works. There are brand names that we trust and have consumed since childhood – Rice Krispies, Heinz ketchup, Best Food mayonnaise – and each aisle is chock full of examples. These…
Is wine good for you? The pendulum always swings when it comes to what foods and beverages are good for your health. I remember in the 70’s we were told that fat was bad, and along with that came cheese, avocados, butter, and bacon. Oh, the horror. People switched to margarine. I remember tubs of…
2024 will be known as the year of the snail. If you didn’t notice the rows of vines as you approached our vineyards this year, you would be convinced that you had happened upon a snail farm. At picking time, it was inevitable that hundreds of them wound up in the picking bins, and we…
In this episode of The Reluctant Somm, Will Henry of Lumen Wines shares his full-circle journey through the wine world. He discusses his innovative approach to natural wines with sulfite alternatives, his and his wife’s restaurant, Pico, in Los Alamos, and his collaboration with the esteemed Lane Tanner. Tune in to hear about the unique…
The 2021 harvest was near. I called my winemaking partner, Lane Tanner, and asked her to find as many neutral oak barrels as we could gather – we had to accommodate extra fruit coming in. The quality in this new, mysterious vineyard was just too good to pass up. I dubbed the vineyard ‘The Wild King,’…
I was always a believer that being wild was a good thing – to a point. Be it a confrontation with a bear on a remote surf trip in British Columbia in January, or a night spent adrift on the open ocean in a boat that had lost its engine, wild is exciting, invigorating, and…
Some of the greatest discoveries of mankind were made by accident. Perhaps the best known (and beneficial) was made by scientist Dr. Alexander Fleming, who went on vacation for a few weeks and returned to see that his petri dishes had overgrown with mold. His discovery: penicillin. Other examples of benign errors include potato chips,…
There’s a lot of geeky stuff on the back of a Lumen bottle – wine-geeky stuff. So why is it there? Not only are the basic facts listed – vineyard source, AVA, variety, clone – but also we share the pH, TA (titratable acidity), and Brix at harvest. What, you may ask, is the significance…
In this episode of Wine For Normal People, Will Henry of Lumen Wines shares his insights on organic and regenerative vineyard management. He discusses how these sustainable practices are integral to the health of the vineyard and the quality of Lumen’s wines. Tune in to explore the connection between the land and the wine in…
In this Wine For Normal People episode, Lane Tanner, the “Pinot Czarina of Santa Barbara County,” shares her journey and the art of crafting exceptional wines at Lumen Wines. She discusses the unique terroir of Santa Barbara, sustainable winemaking, and what sets Lumen Wines apart in California’s wine scene.
No two grains of sand are alike – or so a geologist will tell you – and the same goes for fistfuls. Take, for example, a microscopic photograph of grains of sand. What we believe to be a uniform substance (silica, just like the dictionary tells us), is in fact a random conglomeration of particles…
In this episode of Wine For Normal People, Will Henry of Lumen Wines shares how his love for surfing and winemaking intertwines in Santa Barbara. He reveals how the local surf culture and coastal environment shape his approach to crafting exceptional wines. Join us to explore the unique connection between the waves and the vineyards…