Welcome Stranger Optical Illusion 2019
Product details
| Management number | 253563809 | Release Date | 2026/10/24 | List Price | CA$10.80 | Model Number | 253563809 | ||
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Optical Illusion is an 80% Chardonnay, 20% Merlot blend sourced entirely from Open Hand Ranch, a small family-run organic vineyard in southern Mendocino County. The vines were planted in the 1980s across roughly ten acres on a 100-acre property in the Ukiah area, surrounded by oak savannah and native plants.
The winemaking technique is the source of the wine's name: Chardonnay is direct pressed and its juice is pumped directly into whole-cluster Merlot, where the two ferment together with two weeks of skin maceration. Everything is then pressed into neutral oak and vinified without any added sulfur. The result reads as a red wine, but carries a transparency and lift that belies its white grape majority.
On the palate the wine is light to medium in body with lively acidity. Expect fresh red fruit — strawberry, cranberry — alongside a faint earthy, loamy quality that reflects the ranch's organic soils. The texture is supple with minimal tannin, driven more by the Chardonnay's direct-press freshness than by Merlot structure.
Welcome Stranger is a collaboration between Pierre Gastaldello of Bobo Selections and Alex Pomerantz of Subject to Change Wine Co. Both projects prioritize single-vineyard, organically farmed California fruit with minimal cellar intervention.
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