Gershon Bachus

​And now for something different…
The “something different” is Gershon Bachus Winery, located on de Portola in Temecula.  The first thing that strikes you as “different” is their main building.  The design is essentially that of an industrial bay with high ceilings and garage doors along the sides allowing extensive air flow through the room, as shown in the pictures below.  Very nice, and a bit strange in that Gershon Bachus is a boutique winery, and from what we were told not planning on growing, so why such a large tasting room?

​Of course, because of COVID we sat outside on their very large, covered patio, so large that they would need a lot more tables to get them within six feet of each other.  Bringing the wine to you is their standard, so they did not have to make any significant adjustments for the virus.  So we sat at the table and our server brought us water and munchies (breadsticks) – something every winery should do.  Then things got different….

​You see, wineries understand that most Americans drink their wine a short time after buying it.  They respond to this by taking steps in the wine making process to speed up the aging of the wine, or at the least make the wine drinkable without significant aging.  Not Gershon Bachus.  They make the wine so it can be aged.  Indeed, all of their wines are aged five years before offered for sale – and our server made it clear that they are far from reaching their peak!  For me this was very refreshing – I feel it important for wineries to be upfront about their wines needing aging.  As an added note, they use thicker glass for their bottles to protect the wine during the aging process.
Now we were visiting the winery late on a Wednesday afternoon with temperatures in Temecula in the high nineties.  Needless to say, the winery was pretty empty.  I mention this because our fantastic server had to open several bottles of wine for our tasting.  To make sure he had not picked up a bad bottle, he tasted the wines himself before pouring for us.  Wow!
Their winemaking method also falls into the “something different” category.  First of all, they ferment their grapes in concrete.  Six months or so aging in concrete “eggs” is not uncommon, but this was the first time I’ve run into concrete vessels for the fermentation step.  It is supposed to add a bit of earthiness to the wine.  Then the wines are aged in new Hungarian oak barrels 30 of so months.  Most wines are aged in new oak for six months, so this is really a different.  The wines do not wind up over oaked, though.  It also seems that they pick their grapes fairly early, at lower sugar levels than other wines, resulting in lower alcohol levels and higher acidity.
The wine tasting menu is shown below.  Of course, we also tasted some of wines not on the list, such as their Sangiovese.  Overall their approach seems to work.  Despite the higher acidity, I found their Sangiovese quite nice, they have a very good Zinfandel (though lacking the black pepper I really love), but the star of the show is their Syrah.  Really, really nice wine.  They even offer a Merlot that I like!  On the down side, their Astraea blend is pretty weak – really stands out compared to their other wines.  Now if they added some of their great Syrah to it….

​They have a wine club, but they call it a clique in that they are well aware of the fact that their wines are not for everyone – well, at least they are not for anyone without a good wine storage capability.  By now that should not include anyone who drops in on this website regularly….  Anyway, the clique calls for purchase of 4 bottles three times a year at a 20% discount, and 25% off on their library wines.