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
2021 Crystal Ship Pet Nat M - Vena Cava
Tasting Notes and Drinking Window:
Exhibiting the new branding of all of Vena Cava's natural wines as the "Crystal Ship" line, Pet Nat M is a sparkling 100% Merlot made in the ancient method of making a wine with bubbles termed "petillant natural" by the French, where the juice is bottled before fermentation is complete thus forcing the CO2 produced during the fermentation into the wine and thereby carbonating it.
This delicious creation is guaranteed to show you a different side of Merlot than you could imagine existed. With elegant layers of fruit and a smooth mouthfeel, it's zingy acidity and tiny bubbles make it both pleasurable and playful.
Disgorgerd via method ancestral, the wine his only a small amount of sediment remaining leaving it clean and crisp in the glass.
108 cases made
Drinking window: Now - 3 years
Vintage:
2021
Blend:
100% Merlot
Producer:
Vena Cava
Winemaker:
Phil Gregory - British, lives in Mexico
Vineyards:
Valle de San Vicente - 20 hectare site of 50 year old vines in clay rich soils at an elevation of 600 ft
Winemaking:
Grapes are pressed and the juice is removed from the skins after just 2 hours of contact. Fermentation starts in flexi-tanks and once it's underway the juice is poured into the bottles and capped. As the fermentation completes the Co2 released imbues the wine with bubbles. The fermentation is carried out with native yeast.
Sulfites: no sulfites are added at any point during the process.Farming:
Organic, natural, sustainable
Alcohol:
10%
