Cuvee Moriah
⏳ Drinking Window
2004 - 2010
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Roasted duck, grilled lamb chops, wild mushroom tart
✨ Technical Specifications
Pax Mahle's Cuvée Moriah is a heartfelt tribute to his daughter, Moriah, and a masterful expression of California's potential for Southern Rhône-style blends. Sourced from cool-climate, high-altitude vineyards in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties, this cuvée represents a departure from the heavy, over-extracted styles once dominant in California. Instead, Pax utilizes traditional, low-intervention winemaking techniques, including concrete-tank fermentation, whole-cluster inclusion, and aging in neutral French oak puncheons. The result is a wine of immense soul and vitality, balancing the bright, peppery red fruit of Grenache with the savory, structured depth of Syrah and Mourvèdre. It reflects the rugged beauty of the Northern California coast, where maritime breezes and diverse soils coax out complex aromatics of wild herbs, lavender, and dark earth.
🍾 About the Producer
Established in 2000 by Pax and Pam Mahle, Pax Wines emerged as an influential champion of cool-climate California viticulture, initially earning renown for single-vineyard expressions of Syrah. Operating out of an urban winery and tasting cellar in Sebastopol's Barlow district, the domaine collaborates closely with growers across coastal Sonoma County, Mendocino, and the Sierra Foothills. Viticulture centers on organically and sustainably farmed heritage plots, frequently anchored in fractured shale, marine sandstone, and decomposed granite. While early vintages leaned rich and assertive, Pax evolved toward an uncompromising low-intervention ethos characterized by whole-cluster foot stomping, spontaneous fermentations driven by ambient yeasts, neutral French oak aging, and minimal sulfur. Beyond benchmark Syrah bottlings such as Alder Springs, Griffin's Lair, and Castelli-Knight Ranch, the portfolio explores esoteric and heritage white varieties, notably old-vine Chenin Blanc, Vermentino, and Pinot Blanc, celebrated for their tensile acidity, savory transparency, and mineral cut.
🍇 Grapes
Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre