Ruth Lewandowski Naomi Grenache Gris

About Ruth Lewandowski Naomi Grenache Gris

Ruth Lewandowski Naomi Grenache Gris is from the hundred-year-old bush vines at Gibson Ranch in Mendocino, planted somewhere around 1910. The grapes are pressed as whole clusters with the full malolactic conversion taking place, then spend five months on lees, racked once, and bottled unfined and unfiltered. It’s a dark gold, almost amber in the glass with subtle aromatics of apricot, peach, some earth, and faint white flowers. There’s a nice texture and firm acidity, making it a great wine for the table, with a clean mineral finish. It gets better as it opens up and is best served chilled but not too cold, where it can really showcase the complex minerality and depth coming from the old vines.

About Ruth Lewandowski

Winemaker and owner Evan Lewandowski initially made his way to Salt Lake City to attend the University of Utah — or really, to ski. Sticking around after graduation, Evan began working at the wine bar The Spotted Frog (since closed), where he met then-owner, and now national wine importer, Zev Rovine (we’re big Zev fans.) It was here that Evan began developing a passion for natural wine and a dream of becoming a winemaker himself.

Itching to learn more, Evan eventually left his gig in Salt Lake City to work at wineries around the world: Tenute Loacker, Torbreck, Cape Jaffa Wines, L’Ecole No. 41, Quintessa Winery, Bodega Colome, Quivira Vineyards, Oakvale Wines, and finally Domaine Binner. While in Washington, he earned a degree at The Walla Walla Institute for Viticulture and Enology. After working at Christian Binner’s in Alsace for several years, Evan moved back to his adopted state of Utah in 2012 to start his own small project. With the intention to someday plant and grow 100% of his grapes in Utah, Evan began purchasing his fruit from Fox Hill Vineyard and Testa Vineyard in Mendocino County, trekking the organic, dry-farmed, and somewhat more obscure grape varieties in his refrigerated U-Haul to his home in Salt Lake City to complete fermentation, aging and bottling.

While Evan moved his operations entirely to California in April 2018, his L-shaped labels remain a tribute to his adopted state. His winemaking is rooted in his hands-off philosophy, crafting heartfelt, honest wines made to showcase the true expression of the Mendocino terroir. No additives are used: no acid, no sugar, no water, no tannin, no filtration, and no cultured yeast. Low or no sulfur is used according to the cuvee.

But who is Ruth?

Ruth is not the name of Evan’s mother. In fact, it is the name of Evan’s favorite book in the Bible. The book of Ruth is a great depiction of death and redemption. Much of Evan’s philosophy of farming and, in turn, winemaking is derived from this cycle of death and redemption (both in the physical realm one can see and in the spiritual realm one often does not). Death is, indeed, the engine of life. Nothing that is alive today could be so without something having died first. Most of the label names of the Ruth Lewandowski wines come from the book. The labels for the wines also show the death of each animal and the life springing forth because of it.