Just In: La Clarine Farm

10/7/23 -

La Clarine Farm has been producing wine high up in the Sierra Foothills since 2007, but in a way the vision dates back to when Hank Beckmeyer met Caroline Hoël while touring in Europe with art-punk band Half Japanese in the 80s. Loving Europe, Hank stayed and the two worked in the music business through the 90s while fostering a growing love of wines, particularly those from southern France, and specifically those that are made naturally and without manipulation. The two moved to the U.S. around 2000 and began farming, eventually cultivating what is now La Clarine Farm. Influenced by Masanobu Fukuoka's philosophy of natural farming, or "do-nothing farming," Hank approaches winemaking in a minimalistic way, allowing the wines to ferment naturally with no additives or temperature control, often letting the wines take the time they need instead of dictating any timeline. Hank's background in improvisational music has surely influenced this approach, as he's adept at making decisions on the fly (see the 2020 Chardonnay) and comfortable leaving a certain amount of the process up to powers beyond his control.

We were fortunate to have Hank in for a tasting this week and from talking to him you get the sense that while it may seem like a very "hands off" approach, everything he does is with purpose and with the intent to ultimately make a great wine. These are not "natural for the sake of being natural" wines, but rather great wines that happen to be made naturally, because that's how great wines should be made. The wines, like Hank, aren't flashy, pretentious or over-the-top, but they are singular and have character - these are wines you want to drink with friends, wines you want to get to know, wines that are easy to open up to but have layers of depth hidden below the surface.

All of the wines here are grown organically with no treatments, fermented with native yeasts and made without any additions save for a tiny amount of sulfur at bottling occasionally. Jeff DiLorenzo