Stagiaire Wine Scales and Arpeggios 2021

Scales and Arpeggios is a 100% Sangiovese sourced from the Ascona Vineyard, a high-elevation site sitting at approximately 2,500 feet in the South Skyline sub-region of the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA. The vineyard is farmed organically, with ancient marine sedimentary soils of loosely consolidated sandstone and siltstone. At this altitude, the site perches above the marine layer during the day while fog and cool Pacific breezes prevail overnight, creating extreme diurnal swings and a very long, slow ripening season.

Winemaker Brent Mayeaux describes this as likely the coldest Sangiovese site in California, noting the fruit is right on the edge of ripening each year. The 2021 is the return to a red wine after the 2020 vintage was made as a blanc de noir. To manage the site's naturally high acidity, Mayeaux used 100% whole-cluster fermentation with a four-week maceration, then aged the wine for one year in neutral barrels. The wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered with no added sulfites.

Stagiaire is the project of New Orleans-born, former engineer Brent Mayeaux, who staged at wineries in Australia and France before returning to California in 2018. The name references his time as an apprentice in the Jura, where winemakers like Philippe Bornard shaped his approach to minimal-intervention winemaking. His operation is based on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay, and he sources from organically and regeneratively farmed vineyards along the California coast from Santa Cruz up to Sonoma.