Meet Amy Atwood. She’s swell.

But first, maybe I should introduce myself. I’m Whitney and the new kid on the domaineLA block. I’ll be posting here on the blog from time to time and with this post I debut a little ongoing series we like to call Meet the Reps. So- let’s get to it!

Amy is the proprietor of Amy Atwood Selections and one of our favorite people to taste with. She has a stellar portfolio of almost entirely “natural” wines. As Amy says herself, “Most of the wines I sell are made with organic grapes, natural yeasts, no added acids or sugar and minimal added sulfites.” She distributes quite a bit of wine from the Savio Soares book, some Austrian and Spanish selections as well as a few small California producers. She started this venture last Fall after a year of careful selecting and scouting.

Today, Amy brought us five wines to taste; two Savio Soares imports and three California wines from the extremely small production of La Clarine Farm.

While the Trocken was indeed rockin’, and the Languedoc Merlot a true bargain, I want to focus on the La Clarine Farm wines we tried since they highlight Amy’s focus perfectly. Hank Beckmeyer is the winemaker producing truly vin naturel wines in the Sierra Foothills. He applies a hands-off approach to both the farming of the vineyards (Fukuoka Natural Farming) and to the winemaking itself. Words and phrases like “whole cluster, foot-trodden fermentation,” “biodynamic,” “no sulfur at harvest” and “no new oak!” define his practices and method. Read more…