This Alesia offering introduces the first wines from the 2019 vintage, a worthy successor to the fabulous 2019 vintage at Rhys. The wines from 2019 show fantastic depth and concentration similar to their 2018 counterparts, but with a slightly more open character. They will be classic Alesia wines will drink well right away and will continue to improve with age. Given that we craft the Alesia wines from the same estate vineyards as the Rhys vineyard designated wines, they share the same purity, complexity and elegance. To make this more apparent we have brought our Alesia wines under the Rhys label starting with 2019 vintage.

2019 Alesia Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnay

Jeb Dunnuck, JebDunnuck.com (July 2021) The 2019 Chardonnay Santa Cruz Mountains Alesia comes from a blend of sites in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It has a wonderfully textured, medium-bodied, concentrated style carrying ample melon, pineapple, flower, and honeysuckle aromas and flavors. I’d be thrilled to drink a bottle any time over the coming 3-5 years. 92.

John Gilman, ViewFromtheCellar.com (May/June 2021, #93) Now that the Alesia bottlings from Rhys Vineyards are all made from the younger vine production on their estate vineyards, these wines have moved up a level in overall quality. The 2019 Santa Cruz Mountains chardonnay comes in at a svelte 12.4 percent octane in this vintage and offers up a lovely young nose of pear, green apple, lemon, salty soil tones, dried flowers, citrus peel and a hint of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is bright, full-bodied, focused and tightly-knit out of the blocks, with a good core, superb mineral drive and focus, zesty acids and a long, nascently complex and very promising finish. This could do with a year or two in the cellar to blossom properly and will be an excellent bottle in due course. 2023-2040. 92.

Antonio Galloni, Vinous Media (July 2021) The 2019 Chardonnay Alesia (Santa Cruz Mountains) is gorgeous. Bright, floral and translucent, the 2019 is impeccably polished from start to finish. Lemon peel, white flowers and crushed rocks give this appellation level Chardonnay tons of class. It is one of the overachievers in this range. 91.

2019 Alesia Anderson Valley Pinot Noir

John Gilman, ViewFromtheCellar.com (May/June 2021, #93) The 2019 Anderson Valley bottling of pinot noir from Alesia is gorgeous and one of the best wines I have yet tasted sold under the Alesia label from Rhys Vineyards. The bouquet is pure, youthful and beautifully precise, offering up scents of black cherries, pomegranate, a hint of beetroot, gamebird, woodsmoke, a superb base of soil tones, fresh herbs, espresso and a nice touch of cedary oak. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, focused, tangy and displays outstanding mid-palate depth, with a nice sense of imminent sappiness, lovely soil undertow, ripe, suave tannins and a long, vibrant and nascently complex finish. A very serious bottle of pinot in the making! 2028-2060. 93.

Jeb Dunnuck, JebDunnuck.com (July 2021) The 2019 Pinot Noir Anderson Valley Alesia comes from the Anderson Valley sites and can be thought of as an introduction to the style and quality of this estate. Medium ruby-hued, it has medium-bodied aromas and flavors of mulled cherries, roasted herbs, loamy soil, and baking spices. These all carry to a medium-bodied Pinot Noir that has plenty of structure, good balance, and outstanding length. 91.