Populis White Wine Blend

About Populis White Wine Blend

Populis White Wine Blend is an easy-drinking California blend of classic varieties you know and a few surprises. Bright, floral, and mineral-driven. Lemon and lime citrus, green apple, white peach, and a steely finish. All the grapes come from organic vineyards and are fermented separately, then blended to make the final wine.

About Les Lunes/Populis

Two! Two! Two wineries in one! Les Lunes and Populis are two California wineries run by friends Shaunt Oungoulian and Diego Roig. Though both brands follow the natural wine tenets of organic farming and have no additives, there are marked stylistic differences in the final products of each.

At Les Lunes, Shaunt and Diego grow their own grapes and produce more elegant and refined wines. You can think of these as natural wine’s nod towards “traditional” winemaking, without any of the over-the-top funk factors that natty wine has become known for. These wines are, on the whole, classically styled and age-worthy.

Populis is just the opposite. At this brand, Shaunt and Diego purchase grapes from Mendocino County winegrowers and produce fun, flirty, meant-to-be-drunk-right-now wines. As always, every vineyard source is farmed organically without the use of herbicides or pesticides with a premium placed on old vine plantings. These are glou glou and easily chuggable wines meant to be drunk with friends and have a good time.

About Shaunt Oungoulian

Shaunt Oungoulian is a Berkeley-trained chemist who found his calling working at a small winery in the Anderson Valley. During Shaunt Oungoulian’s first vintage working in the Anderson Valley of Mendocino County, he observed and reflected upon the innumerable biological and chemical processes occurring within each tank, barrel, bottle, and glass and was drawn into the world of wine. In order to deepen his understanding of this churning world beneath the surface, Shaunt decided to enroll in UC Davis’s Viticulture and Enology program. While studying at UC Davis, a few classmates introduced him to a number of ‘natural’ wines that had a huge influence on his tastes and goals as a winemaker. Shaunt began to contextualize his research and coursework through a non-interventionist lens and found this approach to be much more intellectually satisfying and fulfilling.

After graduating from Davis, Shaunt left for France to pursue this reductive style of winemaking with various apprenticeships. He was fortunate to work under Philippe Valette in Mâcon and Julie Balagny in Fleurie. Both of these vignerons are extremely technically knowledgeable but remain fiercely non-interventionist in their cellars and vineyards. They demonstrated to him that in order to make truly expressive wines, one must be able to embrace tradition and innovation at once, a lesson that continues to guide Shaunt’s winemaking/winegrowing philosophy to this day.

About Diego Roig

Diego Roig was practically born with a glass of wine in his hands. Raised in California by a family of grape growers and winemakers (with roots dating prior to Prohibition), it was not uncommon to hear him ask for wine (watered back, of course) at the dinner table. His parents regularly obliged and a career in the wine industry was born.

Fast forward to now, and Diego has had the opportunity to learn hands-on from both traditional and natural winemakers around the world. These experiences and countless days spent tending vineyards and tasting wines from all over the world (this time, sans water) have helped shape his belief that the best wines come from soils and vineyards farmed without synthetic chemicals and with the utmost respect paid to nature. Furthermore, grapes grown in these vineyards have no need for commercial yeast strains or chemical additives to manipulate flavor other than the smallest amount of sulfur to protect them during bottling, ensuring the truest expression of place and time.