In Medias Res

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In Medias Res Syrah-based wines are the tête de cuvées of the Willow Creek Wine Co. They are dense and powerful while maintaining finesse and tension. A good portion of SoNA Estate is planted to several clones of Syrah, and our In Medias Res wines focus on a few single blocks. Brian farms SoNA Vineyard to the highest standards and the In Medias Res wines reflect that precision.  

SōNA Vineyard sits at the far west end of the Paso Robles appellation in the Paso Robles Willow Creek District. This area typically stays 10-15 degrees cooler than Paso Robles proper and experiences intense winds in the Spring and Summer. The unique climate allows us to produce wines that are rich and ripe, yet maintain tension and acidity. 

 In Medias Res is a literary term that refers to starting a story in the middle of the plot. The direct Latin translation is into the midst of things. A few examples are each of Homer’s epics, the Iliad and Odyssey, followed by Virgil’s Aeneid, the Divine Comedy by Dante, and more recently the film family of Star Wars, which starts in chapter four. The inspiration for the name comes from the fact that each wine tells the story of the vintage it was produced in. Any time you open a bottle, that wine is somewhere in the midst of its development and tells the story from a different chronological reference point. To add a double and triple entendre, Brian started this journey much likes Dante’s protagonist “in the middle of our journey of our lives”. SōNA Estate also happens to be located in the Central Coast, or the middle of California. 

We hope that when you get a bottle into your hands you find the contents enjoyable and hard to put down.

Each cuvée is sourced from SōNA Estate, where Natalie & Brian live and farm. So far, two block-designated Syrahs (Thesis and Codex) and one Red Wine Estate blend (Eunoia) have been bottled. All three are distinct and showcase the uniqueness of the different parts of the vineyard. Brian and Natalie think of these as some of their best efforts in winegrowing because they planted the vineyard, farmed the vines themselves, and shepherded the fruit through the cellar up until bottling. 

Codex

100% Syrah, this block was planted with cuttings taken from the St Helena library vineyard, a historic site that was planted in the 1800’s as a mixed planting. Codex is an ancient book made of hand-written, unbound pages. The clonal material that creates this wine is some of the oldest Syrah cuttings in California, and produces a dense, broad-shouldered wine that is built to age. 

Thesis

This wine is 100% Syrah from the vineyard's south facing block, directly west of the winery. Its name, Thesis, refers to the pedigree of the vine cuttings. They are from a suitcase clone that came over to the US from France a few decades ago and are rare to find in California.  

Early results suggest that this unique selection will make for a truly individual wine, and over the future decades we will study this clone’s potential in our Paso Robles soil. In the cellar, this wine was aged in 50% new French Oak for seventeen months. It is the prettiest, most forward Syrah produced from the estate.

Eunoia

This wine is a blend of 70% Syrah and 30% Petite Sirah. Its name, Eunoia is a rhetorical term that refers to the feeling of goodwill that exists between a speaker and their audience. The literal translation from Greek is “well minded or beautiful thinking”. Aristotle uses the term to describe the kind and benevolent feelings of goodwill a spouse has for their partner. When Brian and Natalie were conceptualizing the wines that would make their In Medias Res brand, they knew they wanted a wine that would exemplify and encompass the best efforts of the people and the benevolence of the land. Eunoia is the vehicle for those efforts. The wine comprises parts of what they consider the most expressive lots of each vintage put together in a way to reflect the epitome of SōNA Estate.