march 1-31: wonderwerk house of fermintation

Grooving things up this month with Wonderwerk House of Fermentation, and guess what? It's a long month, so there’s ample time to indulge! The first time I spotted a bottle of Club Music, it was love at first sight. I couldn't help but wonder, “Have we met on a sweaty dance floor before?”

We asked Issamu Kamide and Andew Lardy to share with us their journey to becoming winemakers and their inspiration.

How did you get into wine, and what was or is your inspiration?

“Andrew and I got started with producing our own wines in 2017, under the “Discovino” moniker– we later transformed into Wonderwerk. Andrew studied enology and viticulture at Fresno State and had been working in various wineries like Tyler Wines, Deovlet, etc. in the Santa Barbara/Central Coast area prior to us starting our own thing. It was there that he met RyanStirm and when Ryan was already making his own wines in Aromas, CA – we joined in with him at his facility alongside Megan Bell of Margins, James Jelks of Florez, and more. We all started out of the same cellar but have since gone on to do different things. Andrew and I have known each other since High School back home in Virginia. Our inspiration is generally “What if the Pet Shop Boys made wine?”

What’s your reason for being, or your mission, or what drives you to keep doing what you uniquely do?

“We are really flavor oriented – we think about winemaking in terms of building flavors and less about overtly terroir or technique driven. This is an approach we’ve been cultivating for a few vintages now and it’s working well for us. All of our wines start as a finished concept in our head and then we go out and find the grapes that will help us build them into a reality.”

Can you talk about your overall wine style, farming style, general cellar practices? Do you haveany short term or long term goals moving forward?

We are very clean in the cellar and very meticulous. We’ve started using a lot of software and instruments to help us track fermentations and lots and how we process different grapes in different ways for precise record keeping that allows us to build on information from vintage to vintage. This is how we construct complex blends to get to the final concepts.

How do you decide on the grapes and vineyards you’re working with?

We’ve built up a repertoire of vineyards and growers we work with over the years, it took us a while to really branch out and start working with a variety of sources, mostly in the Clarksburg/Lodi area. It’s been very informative to get out there and explore and meet growers who’ve never even heard of or had natural wine before, despite them having organic or Lodi rules farming practices.

What ‘s your favorite beverage on a Monday? On a Friday?

Monday: concord grape spindrift

Friday: Langhe Nebbiolo

We’ve been raving since our youth and it’s still very core to everything we do – if you visit our cellar you’re just going to hear dance music all day long!

FEATURED WINES

$16/gl  ~  $26/bottle to go  ~  $36/bottle to stay

~ $25 - Flight of all three wines 

2023 Club Music

10.5% ABV Sparkling rosé/orange blend

Going back to our roots - our very first cuvee ever was a direct-press rosé and we wondered if maybe it was time to re-examine rosé aster many vintages away from it. How did it progress in our minds? Maybe it's sparkling, maybe it's blended with skin-contact wine to give it an added dimension. That first rosé of ours was called "Donna Rosé" aster the disco diva Donna Summer. This wine reperesnets the next era of dancefloor hits - Club Music!

2023 Big Orange 1L

12.5% ABV Skin-contact "Orange"

"So what *is* orange wine?" A question we hear all the time and we think Big Orange is the best place to start. We designed this wine to have anapproachable profile with sost tannins,moderate acidity, and clean, fruit-driven flavors.

Big Orange is also for the seasoned orange wine drinker.The wine offers fresh aromas of honeysuckle, summer rain,and candied orange, with crisp flavors of apricot and peach tea. Food pairings are nearly limitless.Big Orange is complex, finessed, and easy to drink.

2023 Marinara!

12.2% ABV Red Blend

One night a week everyone asks themselves... "Am I going to have pizza? or.. am I going to make pasta?"This wine was designed for that very moment.Marinara! is a celebration of red sauce (or "gravy"depending on where you're from) - perfectly pairing with the tang, the sweetness, the umami. Whereverthere's pizza or pasta or eggplant parm or meatballsor bolognese, plop a bo﬙le of Marinara! on the table and watch the faces light up as everyone goes "eyyyy!"