Pour Judgement | Piedrasassi and Sandhi: Myriad Cellars, One Sorcerer

The Wines

Sandhi Sta. Rita Hills Blanc de Blancs 2020
Piedrasassi “Bien Nacido Vineyard” Santa Maria Valley Syrah 2021
Piedrasassi “Rim Rock Vineyard” Arroyo Grande Valley 2017
Sandhi “Rinconada Vineyard” Sta. Rita Hills Chardonnay 2022
Sandhi “Romance” Sta. Rita Hills Chardonnay 2023

The Judgement

“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.”

— Samuel Johnson: British poet, playwright, essayist, and smart-ass.

I really like Sammy J’s quote, but I also feel it can be easily inverted: “What is written without pleasure is in general read without effort.”

When gleefully expounding upon wines that truly deserve idolization, my excitability prompts an adjectival blitzkrieg in which each descriptor elbows the last out of the way, in a battle royale lengthier than this sentence. Ya gotta canonize the good juice and prompt immediate awareness of it, with the gusto of a tornado siren, trumpeting the finest grog in the land. 

Ultimately though, I must glorify the wizardly winemaker, the person who gathers grapes and alchemistically transforms them into palate-entrancing beverages that prompt a smile and an immediate second, third, and fourth sip.

The sorcerer in this particular case is Sashi Moorman, a man who appears to regard the 24-hour day as a personal affront. Most winemakers are content to coax magic from a single cellar. Sashi presides over a small confederacy of them: Piedrasassi, Sandhi, Domaine de la Côte, and Evening Land up in Oregon, as though terroir were a stack of puzzles he refuses to leave unsolved. 

He started out in 1996 at Adam Tolmach’s Ojai Vineyard, which is when and where I met him. He then ran the cellar at Stolpman starting in 2001 and helped establish the reputation it still enjoys. That imprint remains. 

Sashi is legendary to me, not just for his wines, but because his dance card since 2016 has been so rife with travel that his unexpected manifestation in the flesh is like a Bigfoot sighting near Loch Ness, while UFOs circle overhead and Elvis sings “Viva Las Vegas” on a lakeside stage.

Fortunately, a few weeks back, he materialized the very day I visited the tasting room, only the second time I’d encountered him in about eight years. We caught up for a bit, and then, pulling a Keyser Söze getaway; just like that — poof! — he was gone. 

The door to his office closed like Michael Corleone’s at the end of The Godfather, leaving me unable to capture anything but a blurry photo of his back. See the collage.

But at least I know he’s out there. With his existence confirmed, I delved back into the lineup with my new friend John at the bar, who “gets me my drinks for free,” and patiently led me through the current offerings. I scribbled my plaudits in standard indecipherable chicken scratch, a slapdash calligraphy that has puzzled cryptologists, Navajo Code Talkers, and my own eyes since the first grade.

Sashi’s wines remain the finest proof that he’s hard at work, preaching the olfactory and palate-enchanting gospels of chardonnay, pinot noir, and syrah. I’ll probably see him again in a few years. If I do, I’ll try to get a better pic.

Tasting Notes

Sandhi Sta. Rita Hills Blanc de Blancs 2020: Terrific from the first whiff, with an evolving nuance of toasted coconut on the nose. Rich, creamy, and frankly luxe, with palpable layers and a sympathetic note of oak woven through. It blossomed on the second pass. Well-balanced, long, and complex.

Piedrasassi “Bien Nacido Vineyard” Santa Maria Valley Syrah 2021: A great Bien Nacido nose of French garrigue/sweet herbs. Rich, lavish, and seductive without ever tipping into overbearance. This is where the whole-cluster work earns its keep, operating in concert with the fruit and texture rather than shouting over it. Accessible but ageworthy.

Piedrasassi “Rim Rock Vineyard” Arroyo Grande Valley 2017: Still available, and worth chasing down. The nose is open and generous — black raspberry up front — and the palate is soft, rich, and improbably fresh nine years on. A thread of basil, mint, and fennel runs through it. Call it a California Cornas — a pretentious phrase I should strike from this writeup but simply won’t.

Sandhi “Rinconada Vineyard: Sta. Rita Hills Chardonnay 2022: Light amber in color, with an overt nose of ripe pear and a touch of apple. Luxurious and textured, finishing slightly nutty but never oxidative. White flowers and honeysuckle chime in elegantly. Accessible and outgoing, this is an open-armed style. Hesitate not.

Sandhi “Romance” Sta. Rita Hills Chardonnay 2023: An even sexier version of the Rinconada. Rich, ripe, and disarming in how seductively upfront it manages to be. A long, nutty finish carries toasted almonds, pear, and Golden Delicious apple on a lavish framework so salacious that Puritans would have burned Sashi at the stake over it.

To give Samuel Johnson the last word: “Wine gives a man nothing … it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.”