Hello friends. It feels a little silly to call Andrew Latta a buzzy winemaker—he’s been working in Walla Walla for over a decade and a half. His eponymous label, however, is much newer to the Washington wine scene, and it’s just about as buzzy as buzzy can be.
We have an exciting trio of wines from Latta today—with exceptional pricing that’s only available for this offer—and a lot of ground to cover. So, without further ado:
2015 Latta Roussanne Lawrence Vineyard
Andrew’s Roussanne is the only white wine in the Latta lineup. This vintage is now totally sold out at the winery—the only small parcel of this wine left lives with Latta’s local distributor. Luckily, we work with them regularly, and they are reserving said parcel for our list members.
The key to Andrew’s house style is a thoughtful focus on place. The vineyards he works with were all meticulously selected after years of hands-on research. Lawrence Vineyard is the home of this Roussanne. It’s a cool site on the Frenchman Hills overlooking the Royal Slope, one that Andrew used to make Viognier when he worked for Charles Smith. However, he has always been attached to the Roussanne grown there.
Sitting 1450 feet above sea level, the Roussanne block is made up of silt loam soils and fractured basalt. While sites that sit lower on this slope are threatened annually by frost, the Roussanne is protected by its elevation and the angle of the incline. Josh Lawrence, the vineyard manager and owner, and Andrew work together to create a distinctive growing technique for these grapes. Roussanne needs to be aggressively managed because of how easily it can brown. The program in place simultaneously allows increased airflow in to cool down the Roussanne block but offers protection from afternoon sun on the west side. The balance allows for these grapes to get the long, cool growing season they prefer. The result is an incredible example of Washington-grown Roussanne.
Wine Enthusiast (Sean Sullivan): “[TEXT WITHHELD]”
2015 Latta Syrah Dana Dibble
Before starting his own label, Andrew Latta was best known to many of our list members as the assistant winemaker at K Vintners. He was responsible for shepherding some of our favorite Washington Syrahs from vine to bottle. 2015 marks the first release of Syrah under his own label. It doesn’t feel hyperbolic to say: this is one of the most exciting Washington releases in recent memory.
The juice is all sourced from Tablas Creek clonal plantings in Freewater Rocks Vineyard in the Rocks District. Andrew has been working with this vineyard for over a decade, so I’ll let him introduce it: Freewater Rocks vineyard is located in the Rocks District of Walla Walla. Planted in 2000 in the core of Freewater Cobbly Loam this is an OG vineyard site with four generations of fruit farming behind it. The wine carries “Dana Dibble” for the man who grew up on the dirt, the third generation farmer who transformed these hardscrabble orchards into the manicured rows of vines standing among the stones today. Dana and Andrew have collaborated on many vintages and vineyard projects over the years and we felt his work deserved recognition, hence the “Dana Dibble”.
This Syrah is cofermented with 2% viognier, which is also sourced from Freewater Rocks Vineyard. 50% whole cluster, this Syrah spent two full years in neutral French oak before bottling. There’s freshness abounding here. The nose is deeply floral, fruity, and funky all at once, as crushed bramble fruit makes way for purple flowers and mortadella. It’s the holy trinity of the Rocks: fruit, flowers, funk. The palate doesn’t disappoint, either. It’s silky and staining, full of dark fruit and smoked meat. The listed alcohol is 14.1%. I’d consider this bottle a must have for any fan of Rocks Syrah.
Wine Enthusiast (Sean Sullivan): “[TEXT WITHHELD]”
2011 Latta Wines Grenache Upland Vineyard
As we’ve said before, there are many perks to our growing neighborhood of wineries, and this offer represents one of them. This is technically a reoffer. This wine has been sold out for years—the winery is now on the 2015 vintage. Recently, a distributor in another state went out of business and had to return their allotment of 2011 Grenache. Andrew reached out to us first. We have access to the only bottles left of this wine in the world; and better yet, Andrew has given us a one-time-only pricing. Any reorders of this wine—if possible at all—will be at the original $45 price-tag.
Excerpts from the original offer: Grenache loves growing in old riverbed soil. Think about Châteauneuf-du-Pape, a favorite home to most of the Rhône varietals that we know and love. The soil there is made up of mostly rocks (known as galets) that have been smoothed over by years of the Rhône river. Well over 70% of the grapes grown in Châteauneuf are Grenache—these grapes love the warm rocks. Here in Washington, many of our river bed soils are at lower elevations, making growing stubborn Grenache grapes a little harder because of cooler temperatures. Grenache can already be finicky to grow, even in the warm, rocky environments that it likes, and can be even more difficult in areas susceptible to freeze.
Upland Vineyard stands apart because it’s on the anticline formation of Snipes Mountain. In layman’s terms, anticlines and synclines are folds in the grounds that go up and down (usually together) and are created by compressional stress. Synclines sink into the ground while Anticlines project upward, bringing soil that you would normally find at lower elevations up to higher ones. What that means for grape growing is that Upland Vineyard has perfectly-suited-for-Grenache riverbed soils at elevations that prevent freeze and let these grapes mature perfectly. The result is astounding.
Andrew and the Upland team were ruthless with yields in 2011, dropping enough fruit that the final yield was a mere 2.2 tons/acre. He used 50% whole clusters (stems and all), and this spent about two years in barrel (neutral 500L puncheons) before bottling. Grenache is light on skin pigments, and in a cool year like 2011, the result is a wine with a delicate pale ruby color. Don’t be fooled. That color belies this wine’s heft (14.7% listed alc) and power. But let’s begin with the aromatics: beautiful, fresh, and lively, with raspberry fruit, and bramble, blossom and pastille all taking a turn. In the mouth, this is a joyful bottle of Grenache, hitting the trinity of berry/rocks/garrigue on a frame that easily melds richness to freshness. This is a lovely, lovely expression of Grenache, with inner mouth perfume and generosity to spare, and a sneaky sense of wildness.
Wine Enthusiast (Sean Sullivan): “[TEXT WITHHELD]”
So, what’s changed? In the past few years since we offered this wine, it has steadily and beautifully evolved into an older wine. While still vibrant and full of spry lift, this is not a young wine anymore. We are looking at almost a decade in bottle—and all of the beautiful intricacies that come along with that. Joyful fruit has allowed room for savories to come into their own with bay leaf, dehydrated orange peel, and pinenuts. The florals have turned from spring to late summer, sundrenched and starting to dry. This is a wine that’s just about to settle into what it was meant to be. It’s a stunner—and should be enthralling for just about everyone, especially those who remember this wine in its youth.