Category: News

CrossHatch was born at Carr Winery in Santa Barbara, CA as a side project focusing on co-fermented wines. It has become so popular since its first 2011 vintage that we decided to branch out, and open the doors to our very own CrossHatch tasting room.

CrossHatch had a grand opening celebration on Labor Day weekend 2017 inside the Windmill in Solvang. We showcased our new wine releases featuring “Tone”, “Shape”, “Shading” and “Depth”. Customers enjoyed wine tasting paired with cheeses from Vinhus.

“Bourbon and pickle juice, Champagne and fried chicken, peanut butter and bacon: sometimes it’s the odd things in life that go well together.  CrossHatch, is proof of that.

This low production label is blending incredible, unlikely varietals together that mimic the artistic technique of cross hatching, and it’s wooing all who taste it while keeping the most educated of tasters on their toes.

I tasted all five of the label’s blends, starting with Tone, the 79 percent sauvignon blanc and 21 percent chardonnay blend, which grabbed my attention right out of the gate with its incredibly bright mouthfeel and buttery smooth finish.

Then I tasted Shape, a non-traditional blending of 80 percent mourvèdre and 20 percent cabernet franc.

The sweet scent of strawberries and cream was followed by a deep, lush, hearty vibrant strawberry-tinged rosé that absolutely satisfies.

As I dove into the red Rhône- and Bordeaux-style blends, Shading andDepth, my expectations were low, figuring that their winemaker was beginning to get a little too far outside the lines.

I’m a big fan of Carr’s Cabernet Franc Reserve and have never felt it needed fixing, futzing or blending in any way. I stand corrected.

While I’m still a fan of the cab franc by itself, I must admit the berry notes on Shading, the grenache-syrah blend, practically jumped out of the glass with intense raspberry on the palate and a bit of spice on the nose.

Depth, the merlot-cab franc blend, is not to be missed either thanks to its earthy nose, similar to the Cab Franc Reserve, and a velvety smooth, lightly tannic finish.

Basically, Carr has taken the best parts of each varietal and mashed them into perfect blends the likes of which I hadn’t thought would ever work well together.

And while I’m sure it was no accident or experiment borne from sheer boredom (see peanut butter and bacon), CrossHatch’s latest prove that sometimes the best combinations in life are the stranger ones.”

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Creativity can often come from shaking things up a bit, which is exactly what winemaker Ryan Carr has done with his new label, CrossHatch, a project focusing on co-fermented blends from Santa Barbara County vineyards. After making only single varietal wines for 11 years, Ryan wanted to try something different. He and his wife Jessica came up with the idea of CrossHatch, inspired by cross hatching, an artistic technique that uses closely spaced intersecting lines to create shading, definition, and form in a drawing.

Ryan adapted this technique to the winemaking process by harvesting multiple varietals on the same day then crushing and fermenting them together.

According to Carr Winery Marketing Manager Kayla Bonnin, “the idea of co-fermented wine is nothing new. Some of the best and oldest wines in the world are made this way, but with the microclimates of Santa Barbara it really adds another layer to the process. Co-fermentation brings out and creates flavors in the wine that would not have existed otherwise. This makes the CrossHatch wine truly one-of-a-kind.”

The labels are also quite unique, inspired by the antique winemaking equipment Ryan and his dad have collected over the years and created by local artist, Thomas Van Stein, who used the crosshatch technique to draw the crusher, corkscrew and basket press labels. Read more…

sbseasons.com