21 Feb Please The Palate Wine of the Week: J Brix Wines 2022 P.M. Daylight Pinot Meunier, Riverbench Vineyard, Santa Maria Valley

I have never met a Pinot Meunier that I haven’t liked. But it is hard to meet them as not many produced as there are only 156 acres of Pinot Meunier planted in California, and 5 of those acres are non-bearing. But luckily there is some California Pinot Meunier to be found and this week I found the J Brix 2022 P.M. Daylight Pinot Meunier from the Riverbench Vineyard in Santa Maria Valley. As I said, I have yet to meet a Pinot Meunier that I haven’t liked and this one was no exception. That is why the J Brix 2022 P.M. Daylight Pinot Meunier is the Please The Palate wine of the week.

About J Brix

J Brix is a San Diego-based winery owned by Emily Towe & Jody Brix Towe. Emily and Jody, like many, fell in love with wine and traveled up to Santa Ynez to taste wines. In 2007, they had the opportunity to work a harvest with Tantara winery where they learned about making wine. They worked a second harvest at Tantara in 2008 and at Thanksgiving, some of the other harvest interns came down to San Diego to celebrate with them. It was over dinner and wine that they started talking about making their own wine. It had not been a thought until then and they did not have a plan. They loved Grenache and decided to make some in their garage. They made 4 barrels (75 cases) of Grenache is 2009. But 2012, they were up to 300 cases and today they produce 3000 cases.

Emily and Jody source fruit from the Central Coast (Santa Maria, Los Alamos, Santa Ynez), as well as vineyards in San Diego. They source from vineyards that are certified organic or follow organic principles. And they make their wine in a shared facility in San Diego.

A fun side note, J Brix was prominently featured in the the holiday Netflix film Holiday In The Vineyard. 

Tasting Notes

Jody and Emily had been working with Pinot Gris from Riverbench Vineyard, where approximately 7 acres of Pinot Meunier is also planted. At the time, all of the Meunier went into the Riverbench sparkling wine. But in 2020, after a few years of buying Pinot Gris, Jody and Emily were the first “outsiders” to get four tons of Pinot Meunier from Riverbench.

The Meunier is planted on the Santa Maria Bench, an ancient riverbed made up of alluvial soils containing clay, silt, sand, gravel, sandstone, and river cobble. The grapes were hand-picked at night, destemmed, fermented, and pressed to neutral French oak barrels for 11 months of aging. The wine was then bottled unfined and unfiltered.

The wine is a beautiful deep garnet color and has a lovely nose with red and blue fruit notes. The wine has lots of acidity and finishes with strawberry notes on the palate.

Food Pairing

Pinot Meunier is a parent to Pinot Noir, and like Pinot Noir, Meunier is a very food-friendly wine. I enjoyed the wine with pizza but if can be enjoyed with Mediterranean food, grilled salmon, roasted chicken, and more.

Where To Purchase

The 2022 J Brix Wines P.M. Daylight Pinot Meunier retails for $36 and is available on the J Brix website.