Kunin Jurassic Park Natural Chenin Blanc 2020
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Robert
Parker
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
This wine is totally natural. Nothing other than pristine fruit from the Jurassic Park Vineyard was used or added in its creation. After harvesting Chenin from the 35+ year-old vines, Kunin crushed and destemmed the fruit as they would when making a red wine. The juice and skins were left together for 21 days. The wild yeasts that were present on the skins of the grapes completed the fermentation and the natural anti-oxidants on the skins provided all of the protection necessary during elevage (9 months in neutral oak) and bottling. The wine has a lovely purity to it. It tastes of fresh white peaches and Chenin, of course. This wine is a dream with cheeses and nuts but also exotically spiced foods. Serve the wine chilled but not too cold – you’ll want to savor its more delicate notes.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Chenin Blanc Natural Jurassic Park is made without added yeasts or sulfur, spent about 21 days on the skins and was bottled unfined and unfiltered. It has scents of honeycomb and chamomile with umami undertones from its long, open-top fermentation and time on skins. The palate is bright, textural and savory, with tangy acidity and a long, olive and mushroom-toned finish. Fans of "natural wine" will enjoy this Chenin Blanc inspired by the wines of Radikon and Gravner.
Other Vintages
2016-
Robert
Parker
Kunin Wines will never make 5,000 or even 10,000 cases of wine for just this reason. I want to make the best wine possible from the best vineyards possible year after year. Unfortunately, the best vineyards don’t always have that many grapes, so it is a fact of life for me that Kunin Wines will always be small, and that our production of various wines from different vineyards may fluctuate from vintage to vintage. By staying small and letting vineyard and vintage quality dictate production levels, however, we will always be able to make the best wines possible from the best grapes available. When you open a bottle of wine with a Kunin label, you can be assured that, from the vineyard to the glass, as little as possible was done to obscure the purity of fruit and terroir that Mother Nature created.
Unquestionably one of the most diverse grape varieties, Chenin Blanc can do it all. It shines in every style from bone dry to unctuously sweet, oaked or unoaked, still or sparkling and even as the base for fortified wines and spirits. Perhaps Chenin Blanc’s greatest asset is its ever-present acidity, maintained even under warm growing conditions. Somm Secret—Landing in South Africa in the mid 1800s, today the country has double the acreage of Chenin Blanc planted compared to France. There is also a new wave of dedicated producers committed to restoring old Chenin vines.
Today it is an integral part of the greater Santa Barbara County wine region, but at one time the village, Los Olivos, was a stop on the Wells Fargo stagecoach line.