Featured on July 6, 2019
Where: Santa Ynez Valley, California
Why: This is summertime in a bottle, sustainably produced on Chumash tribal soil by one of the only recognized Native American winemakers, Tara Gomez.
How: Fruit for this wine is sourced from a 256-acre vineyard that was planted by Fess Parker and subsequently purchased in 2010 by the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians.
The fruit (Clone Noir T Grenache) was vinified 100% whole-cluster and pressed to tank for seven months, then spent four months aging on lees before bottling.
When winemaker Tara Gomez (who also started a second label, Camins 2 Dreams) generously shared samples of Kitá wines, she included a beautifully penned letter, which I will excerpt below.
The word Kitá means “our valley oak” in the Chumash native language of Samala. It represents all of the valley oak trees in the vineyard, many of which have existed since our ancestors’ beginnings, hundreds of years ago. Like the valley oak, our wines highlight the gifts from Mother Earth and embody the spirit of our native lands. Kitá prides itself on its connection and on balance to the land, which is a Chumash philosophy I was raised on.
Being female and the only recognized Native American winemaker, I feel we have a special relationship to the land because we are the original stewards of the land, and understand the value of its natural resources. I ensure that the connection to the land can be seen in the vineyard practices and tasted in the wines. With each distinct vintage, I aim for the wines to capture the essence of such a spiritual and extraordinary place.
