2022 Petit Verdot | Windmill Ranch | Ballard Canyon AVA

NO ONE MAKES A 100% PETIT VERDOT
WELL, WE DO….

I love this photo.

I didn’t for a long time—couldn’t even look at it, truth be told. But now I can. Now I need to. It was taken in 2020, during the lockdown, during the silence, during the year the world flipped the Closed Sign.

You want to know what grit looks like?

It’s this photo.

Not a movie still. Not a posed portrait.
It’s a real moment.
A whole family holding their breath.

Every grandkid of Big Lar—stacked in the back of his old 1950 Chevy.
No funeral procession. No crowd. No fanfare.
Just six kids and a legacy, bouncing down the road in a truck built to last—because the world said we couldn’t gather,
but we knew we had to say goodbye.

That’s grit.

Grit is a white rose in a child’s hand.
Grit is wearing your grandfather’s cowboy hat like armor.
Grit is standing tall when your knees want to buckle.
Grit is smiling when you feel like crying.
Grit is barefoot in the bed of a pickup, feeling the weight of the moment and holding it anyway.
Grit is reflection in the rear window—eyes hidden behind dark glasses, carrying the pain for two.

This photo is the definition of grit.
It’s that split second where sorrow meets strength.
When you don’t want to go, but you do it anyway.
You show up.
You honor.
You endure.

That’s the cowboy way.

Grit ain’t something you wear on your sleeve.
It’s something you carry in your spine.
In your guts.

This isn’t a photo of mourning.
It’s a photo of rising.

Because grit doesn’t look like perfection.
Grit looks like this.

Grit is what gets you off the mat when you want to stay down.
Grit is the end of losing, and the beginning of the fight back.
Grit is what you have left when you have nothing.
Grit is the beginning of winning.

Down—
But definitely not out.

Grit is where you start when you begin sanding something raw into something beautiful.
Grit is where, after enough time, you can look back and finally see how far you’ve come.
How much you’ve grown.
How the scar became the medal.

Petit Verdot is grit.

Like that moment in the back of the truck—it holds its ground when everything else falls apart.
It doesn’t lead with sweetness. It doesn’t ask for attention.
It shows up when it’s hard.
It stands tall when the world says “sit down.”

Petit Verdot is misunderstood, underestimated, and often cast into the background.
Most winemakers use just a splash—because it’s stubborn, slow to ripen, too bold, too much work.
Just like grief.
Just like real strength.
Just like those six kids who climbed into the truck, knowing full well what the day meant.

It has thick skin.
Small clusters.
It takes heat, pressure, and time to become what it’s meant to be.
And when it does—it doesn’t just exist.
It commands.

This wine is Cash’s stare in his grandfather’s hat.
It’s Emery’s white rose and brave smile.
It’s Brielle’s steadiness.
Brady’s quiet grin.
Lane’s barefoot courage.
It’s your brother, silent in the window, holding the weight with you.

Petit Verdot, like that photo, is not about polish.
It’s about presence.
It doesn’t pretend. It doesn’t flinch.
It carries the weight—and holds the line.

It’s the wine that says: We may be down. But we’re not done.
It’s the wine that knows legacy isn’t something you talk about.
It’s something you carry.

Most people won’t make a 100% Petit Verdot.
It’s too hard.
It takes too long.
It fights you the whole damn way.

But that’s exactly why we do it.

At first, it’s wild—like dragging a cat across the carpet.
It bucks. It claws. It doesn’t want to be tamed.
But with enough time, it starts to settle.
It starts to form its chains.
The tread count goes from burlap to silk.

And then—one day—you see it.
A glint. A shimmer.
That rock starts to shine.

So you keep going.
You keep pressing.
You keep believing.

And one day, you look down and there it is—
A diamond in your hands.

Because nothing beautiful starts that way.
It all takes a little grit.
A little fight.
A whole lot of faith and fire.

From charcoal to diamond.
Time and pressure.

Same with people.
Same with this wine.
Same with Big Lar’s family.

GRIT.

For Big Lar.
For the grandkids in the truck.
For everyone who’s been knocked down but chooses to rise.

We live to honor those who have come before us,
and to prepare the way for those yet to come.

That’s not just how we make wine.
That’s how we live.

True GRIT.

TASTING NOTES
GRIT 2022 | Petit Verdot
Ballard Canyon AVA – Saarloos Estate Vineyard
The Grandkids in the Truck

This wine tastes like holding your breath when no one taught you how—but you figure it out anyway.

First pour:
It opens like a door that wasn’t supposed to open. Ink-black in the glass. First sniff hits with crushed violets and cold iron—like someone left wildflowers on an anvil. There’s black cherry in there, but it’s not the sweet kind. It's concentrated. Compressed. Like it was held in a clenched fist and then released.

Mid-palate:
Dark fruit rolls in like a slow storm—blackberry, cassis, and mulberry. All of it tight. Tense. Then comes the grounding: leather, tobacco leaf, and a dry cedar plank. That’s where the grit shows up. It’s not rustic—it’s refined resilience. The kind you earn.

Texture:
The tannins don’t knock. They walk in like they own the place. Firm but polished. Like someone who shakes your hand and looks you dead in the eye. Structured, but not stiff. You taste time. You taste discipline. A quiet kind of strength, the kind that doesn't need to raise its voice.

The finish:
Slow and low. Charcoal smoke, dusty earth, and a trace of black tea. It doesn’t vanish. It lingers—like a story you’re not quite ready to tell. Like a rearview mirror full of memory.

This is a wine built from backbone.
For the moments you don’t know how to explain, but feel anyway.