Edmunds St John "El Jaleo" Red Shake Ridge Ranch Amador County 2021
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Press 4 Mix/Red • April/May 2026 Direct Press Selection
Steve Edmunds is an under-sung California wine legend, who began in the 1980's as one of the 'Rhone Rangers' working with Syrah, Mourvedre, Marsanne, and Gamay in California instead of the Bordeaux or Burgundian varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. Even in the aughts when I was just starting in wine, Steve was getting trash-talked for making wines that were "too French" in California to being an elder statesman of the new-wave California movement of the past decade, letting the vineyards and the soil come through instead of heavy-handed winemaking. If you ever come across some of his back-vintages, jump on it. I've been fortunate to have tasted his wine back into the 1990s and they are some of the most memorable wines with age I've had.
Steve, alas, is retired but I'm very glad we can include the last vintage of his "El Jaleo" red in our California wine club. This is from 2021, a year beset with fires, and so he only made this and a rosé. It comes from Shake Ridge Ranch in Amador County, in what wine professionals call "solar" conditions; a euphemism for really hot and sunny. To make good wine in this climate means farming has to be super on-point to control things like vine vigor, grape sunburn — and potential alcohol levels that'll land you a DUI on your kid's scooter coming back from the park. The person responsible for that is Ann Kraemer, the dedicated, longtime steward of the organic Shake Ridge vines. Another favorite California winemaker of mine, Angela Osborne from A Tribute To Grace, also buys fruit from this site.
"El Jaleo" is Grenache, Mourvèdre, Tempranillo, and Graciano destemmed and aged in neutral French oak and steel tank. What I love so much about this wine is that it proudly reads as California — borderline jammy with brambly, strawberry notes — but only in how it expresses where it's grown, not in the winemaking. Steve uses this ruddy, healthy fruit to make a Technicolor, vibrant, lip-smacking wine with just enough earth and pepper to balance out the fruit leather and sorbet notes. Steve's humility and tenacity throughout the wild changes in California wine trends over the past 40 years is something I really admire. Jonathan Kemp
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