The Bench Vermentino
⏳ Drinking Window
2023 - 2025
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Grilled sea bass, linguine with basil pesto, fresh goat cheese
✨ Technical Specifications
Pax's exploration of Mediterranean varieties shines in 'The Bench' Vermentino, sourced from the gravelly, alluvial soils of the Clement Hills in Lodi. Inspired by the crisp, coastal white wines of Liguria and Sardinia, winemaker Pax Mahle crafts this expression to capture the grape's natural, vibrant acidity and distinctive saline minerality. Fermented with native yeasts and aged in neutral vessels to preserve its fresh fruit profile, this wine represents California's modern embrace of alternative varieties, delivering a beautifully textured palate balanced by bright citrus and stony undertones.
🍾 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
Vermentino