The Vena Cava Estate
- Vena Cava is a boutique winery founded in 2005 by Phil and Eileen Gregory under the principles of passion and quality over quantity. While they didn’t start with the intention of making “natural” wines, the more they learned the more this seemed the only interesting route forward. Today they are among the standouts of wineries in Mexico that are making exceptional wines in a “natural” style. While the estate makes wines that are strictly natural and others that are organic and noninterventionist (yet still apply some conventional techniques), we offer only their purely natural wines.
- All Vena Cava wines that have “Crystal Ship" or“Natural” as part of the name are made with organic grapes, fermented with native yeast, see no corrections, fining or additives and are bottled unfiltered with only a minimal amount of sulfites.
- While Vena Cava has its own estate vineyards, they have focused their business model on creating deep relationships with the best growers and the best vineyard sites such that, today, only 10% of their wines come from their estate owned grapes.
Vineyard locations, elevations and grape varieties –
- In addition to their 9.8 acres of estate vineyards located next to the winery in Valle de Guadalupe, they source their grapes from a number of select sites in Valle de Ojos Negros, Valle de San Vicente and Valle de Santo Tomás. All are organically farmed.
Total production: 10 regular wines and 10 “experimental” wines that change occasionally from vintage to vintage, 2,000 cases
2020 Big Blend - Vena Cava
Tasting Notes and Drinking Window:
This is the big boy of the Vena Cava red line up and if this bright and elegant red shows you how far they are willing to go in terms of density then you quickly understand this is an estate who is working on finesse and elegance rather than extraction and massive structure. This vintage opens with a seductive nose of dark fruits, forest floor and clay pot, spun together with an array of floral aromatics that assume a vaulted position above the rest. In the mouth there is considerable lift, almost leaning towards cranberry in intensity of acid and angularity. The tannin structure and overall vivacity of this vintage suggest it will age nicely for a decade or more. In the meantime, it will work very well with a red meat dish and spicy foods.
483 cases made
Drinking window: upon release – 10 years
Vintage:
2020
Blend:
25% Syrah, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Petite Sirah, 17% Zinfandel, 14% Grenache
Producer:
Vena Cava
Winemaker:
Phil Gregory - British lives in Mexico
Vineyards:
Vena Cava’s wines come from select sites in Valle de Guadalupe, Valle de San Vicente and Valle de Santo Tomás. Because of their approach to making several individual fermentations of each variety and blending just before barrel aging, specific site information is not available.
Winemaking:
All of Vena Cava’s grapes are fermented separately in two lots – half French oak barrels and half flexi tank. This gives them a variety of options when it comes time to blend in the process of making the final wine. After blending this wine was aged in French Oak barrels of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and neutral use for 12 months before bottling.
Sulfites: 35 ppm
Farming:
Organic, sustainable
Alcohol:
13%
