Core vineyard is located 33 miles due north of Rincon Point, the coastal landmark that divides Santa Barbara County to the west and Ventura County to the east. Roughly 70 miles east of Point Sal and 15 miles west of the San Andreas Fault, this extremely remote vineyard is planted at an incredible 3200 feet elevation just west of Highway 33 above the Cuyama River. This is another Santa Barbara County vineyard I admire for its very warm climate. According to the soil survey for northern Santa Barbara County, the soil is defined as "Wasioja fine sandy loam" with 9 to 15% slopes. The Wasioja series consists of well-drained fine sandy loams that occupy old dissected terraces above the valley floor. Thanks to its proximity to California's most active fault, a virtual geologic treasure chest of cobbly and gravelly surface layers (e.g. schist, quartzite, basalt, gneiss, and decomposed granite) distinguish the topsoil at Core. The vertically trained 8' x 5' (1089 vines per acre) vineyard itself was planted in 2000 to Grenache noir on 1103P. The clone here is the original ENTAV clone imported by Tablas Creek Vineyard, Bob Haas and the Perrin family. Core vineyard is farmed sustainably by Dave Corey, a friend of Tim's dating back to 2000 and Clos Mimi's first harvest at Central Coast Wine Services. Dave is a hands-on advocate of extremely short pruning, shoot removal, cluster thinning, and perhaps most importantly, very little irrigation in order to achieve Rayas-like success with the often overbearing Grenache. In fact, the late Jacques Reynaud (Château Rayas' vigneron) would be quite proud of Dave's accomplishments with Grenache for such a young vineyard. Limited to the 2003 and 2004 vintages only, Clos Mimi will produce a microscopic 450 bottles of a monocépage Grenache from vines yielding one-half to one ton per acre.