Founding Member Release

Dear EC Founding Member,

The fires of 2017 prevented us from picking our grapes from Dry Creek Valley at Ricci Vineyard. Sadly, there will be no Merlot or Cabernet from that area this vintage. However, I am doing a 2017 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.

Look, we’ve sold out of our first five vintages of Cab Sauv from Dry Creek Valley: and our 6th, the 2016 is nearly gone. The Merlot sold out in months.

I hope you’ve grown to appreciate the difference in each vintage. It’s because the product is alive; between the grape, the weather, the soil nutrients, and even the French oak and coopers that toast the barrels, it’s been fun for me to share each year's form.

The folks helping me craft these small batch wines (so far we’ve made 90 to 190 cases each time) bring decades of grape growing, winemaking, barrel crafting and plain old enthusiasm to the undertaking.

One of the things I’m most proud of is that we actively refuse to use fruit flavorings, preservatives, and strange chemicals with long frightening names. This is something not true with many big name Cabs these days. I hope I never stop using great grapes, yeast, wood, and fire.

If you’re getting this email, you’ve bought one of the first 6 vintages and with that, as promised, your price is still good for this wine, from a different region.

The latest grapes came to us by chance and was fortuitous.

So, back to the wine story... Two weeks before the 2017 fires, friends of mine offered some extra Cabernet from the world renowned Alexander Valley. The AV Cab had fermented and was in barrels when the fires started over in Dry Creek Valley. And since it was just a little experiment, after all I was planning on making tons of the Dry Creek Valley Cabernet, I only bought enough grapes to make around 60 to 65 cases...

Phew, since we decided to NOT pick our own 2017 Dry Creek Valley fruit because of smoke taint, I feel lucky.

And you should too.

The 2017 Alex Valley Cab is still in barrel and is tasting spectacular... but it's so limited in quantity that I'm first offering it up to Founding members only, and as a future... which means you'll have to trust me that within the next months we'll bottle it and send you bottles of a rare and fantastic Eifrig Cab; one from a different piece of land in Northern California - the famous Alexander Valley...

I'm expecting to sell out the entire production, so don't delay.

Also, please send me a return email, simply earmarking the amounts you’d like, so you don’t get left off the RESERVE list. Again, I’ve made only 65 cases of 2017 Cabernet, this will go quickly.

Here's to your health, wealth, and a great retirement,

de