Towns Wine Co. Chenin Blanc 'Mama Mama' Baja California 2024 750mL

MEXICO : BAJA CALIFORNIA : VALLE DE OJOS NEGROS

Chenin Blanc

LIGHT-BODIED, LEMON BLOSSOM, LIME ZEST, WHITE PEACH, SALINE, OAK

Towns Wine Co. is the nonprofit négociant Alicia Towns Franken co-founded with her husband, Michael Franken, to partner with female winemakers of color and put their regions in front of new drinkers. For 'Mama Mama' the partner is Lourdes "Lulu" Martínez Ojeda — raised among her great-grandmother's vines in Baja, then a decade on the winemaking team at Château Brane-Cantenac in Margaux before coming home to run the cellar at Bruma.

The fruit comes from one site, Viñedo Kompali, in the Valle de Ojos Negros, a high inland valley east of Ensenada where warm days give way to cold nights. Martínez Ojeda picks early for freshness, presses under nitrogen to keep oxygen out, ferments in stainless steel, then ages the wine in concrete eggs and large 500-liter French oak puncheons. Bright, mineral, 12% alcohol — less novelty, more serious Chenin.

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