{"product_id":"lady-of-the-sunshine-bassi-vineyard-albarino-2025","title":"Lady of the Sunshine Bassi Vineyard Albariño 2025","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Land\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe San Luis Obispo Coast AVA has a 309-day growing season, and fog covers the vines on 35 to 55 percent of nights between budbreak and harvest. Annual rainfall averages 16.8 inches. Those numbers describe Galicia far better than they describe Napa, which is a large part of why Albarino makes sense here at all. Bassi Vineyard sits 1.2 miles from Avila Beach, planted in 2001 on sandstone that runs from exposed rock outcropping to loose sand deposits. The Albarino occupies terraced ground on the vineyard's western slope, the side that takes the marine air first, and nothing between those rows and the water slows it down. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir account for 78 percent of everything planted in this AVA, so this is a genuine outlier.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Wine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlbarino from the SLO Coast, and a serious one. Fruit is hand-harvested and whole-bunch pressed with no skin contact, then fermented in neutral oak barrels and left ten months on its lees. Malolactic goes through. There is no fining, no filtration, and a small sulfur addition at bottling. Those ten months on lees are what give the wine its weight: the texture is broad and faintly waxy rather than the brisk stainless-steel version of the grape most American drinkers have met. White peach, green almond, grapefruit pith and salt spray, finishing long, saline and a little bitter in the way good Albarino does. The 2025 Central Coast season ran cool and unhurried, with below-average rainfall and almost no triple-digit heat, so sugars stayed low and natural acidity stayed high.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe People\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGina Giugni grew up on Narrow Gate Vineyards, the 90-acre biodynamic property her parents established in California's Sierra Foothills in 2004, so farming this way was never a conversion for her. She studied winemaking at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, worked a 2015 harvest in Beaujolais, split 2016 between the South Island of New Zealand and the Willamette Valley, and spent most of 2017 at a small winery on Howell Mountain. She started Lady of the Sunshine that same year, working leased blocks until Bassi became hers. The cellar is deliberately plain: a 1988 four-ton Euro press for the whites, old French oak for aging, native yeast and bacteria running the fermentations, nothing added to adjust chemistry. She is after wines that read linear and concentrated rather than plush.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFood Pairing\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOpen this next to anything that comes out of a shell. Steam clams with white wine, garlic and a fistful of parsley, and the wine's salinity meets the broth head-on. Grill a whole branzino with lemon and olive oil, skin crisped, and the lees-built texture stands up to the oil. Albarino's classic Galician partner is octopus, so pulpo a la gallega with paprika and flaky salt is the obvious move. Easier on a Tuesday: roast a chicken, squeeze a lemon over it, pour this, and let the acidity reset things between bites of crisp skin. It is the bottle that makes a weeknight dinner feel like it happened on the coast.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Craft","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67575131013343,"sku":null,"price":43.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P9270419.jpg?v=1790548337","url":"https:\/\/danverwinemerchant.com\/products\/lady-of-the-sunshine-bassi-vineyard-albarino-2025","provider":"Denver Wine Merchant","version":"1.0","type":"link"}