Handcrafted Wines by Etienne Terlinden

Crafted from grapes that naturally call Santa Barbara home

As long as my cousins and I insisted on playing hide-and-seek among the precious Grand Crû Bordeaux and Première Crû Burgundy in my grandfather’s extensive wine cellar near Brussels in Belgium, my grandfather made sure that we appreciated the quality of the wines housed in our playground. He often opened bottles for our education. We tasted the wines and we talked about them. My enthusiasm for wine was very obviously rooted in my grandparents’ home where wine was simply considered a beverage to be enjoyed with a meal.
Growing up in Los Angeles with a Belgian father and Californian mother, wine continued to play a part in the most memorable meals at home and in our family travels throughout Europe. At a relatively young age, I had the privilege of sampling wines from all over the world, of learning the importance of terroir, and of recognizing the harmony that results when a certain wine and food pair perfectly. I had the opportunity to work for a French winery over a couple of summers and so began my love affair with viticulture and oenology.

It’s the joy I get from crafting blends that inspired this Rhone blend of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre, tagged 246 in honor of Highway 246 that runs the course of our Santa Ynez Valley. Using three different grape varietals to create a well-balanced wine with an aromatic bouquet and clean fruit characteristics is true art for the palate. These grape varietals likely originated in the Rhone region of Francebefore arriving in California in the 1980s where they flourished in the diverse microclimates of the Santa Ynez Valley corridor. My GSM was aged in a mix of French and Amercian oak using traditional age-old winemaking methods with a touch of modern technology. I hope that you enjoy this artisanal blend as much as I enjoyed crafting it.

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