Where To Buy Rusack Wine
The setting for Rusack is as unique as the wines. Entered via a winding drive through the vineyards, the Canyon Terrace features an inviting redwood deck constructed around four beautiful ancient oaks.
where to buy rusack wine
Our beautiful Canyon Terrace Deck, Garden and Lounge offers comfortable, conversation-style seating, with table service offering wine by the glass, bottle, and a vast selection of wine samples our guests can choose from. Charcuterie plates and caviar are also available for purchase, and we ask that you please order 48 hours in advance. Each seating is 90-minutes.
This new style of a seated, more intimate, and less formulaic tasting experience is sweeping the industry in our post-COVID era. Wineries see them as a way to better connect meaningfully with customers, which leads to larger purchases and longer wine club relationships. Consumers, meanwhile, are seeking situations that are more refined and private, yet less overtly educational or dogmatic in structure.
After the pandemic caused Santa Barbara County wineries and tasting rooms to close their doors to visitors, RUSACK decided to use the shutdowns as an opportunity to rethink the entire guest experience, the results of which include the renovation of their hospitality areas as well as the creation of more personalized tastings for guests. Now, the RUSACK team is thrilled to debut their brand-new visitor experience upon the reopening of their doors this weekend.
RUSACK Vineyards will celebrate with an official reopening weekend beginning on February 18, 2022, with tasting appointments available by advanced reservation. More information can be found online at www.rusack.com/visit.
Nestled amidst oak-studded hills in the picturesque Ballard Canyon AVA is RUSACK Vineyards, a boutique vineyard and winery where a commitment to quality is reflected in everything from the meticulous farming to their hands-on approach to winemaking. RUSACK produces a range of acclaimed wines that showcase the unique terroir of Santa Barbara County, sourcing grapes from their estate vineyards in Ballard Canyon and on Santa Catalina Island, and from select vineyards throughout the Sta. Rita Hills and Santa Maria Valley AVAs.
This wine is packed with bright juicy notes of strawberries, raspberries, and caramel, with subtle hints of orange meringue. Firm acidity and an elegant balance make for a very approachable, food-friendly wine.
Wine is an amazing gift! However, due to the nature of regulations, it does come with some additional risks and costs. We have put together this brief FAQ so you can make sure that a wine gift is the best fit.
It is the customer's responsibility to provide an address where someone 21+ will be available to sign for the shipment. Shipping carriers will make a few attempts, and if no one is home, the recipient will be given the opportunity to pick up the gift from a Fedex location. If they do not pick it up within the designated window, it will be returned to us. We cannot offer refunds on any perishable items that are returned to us. To maintain the highest quality, we cannot restock wine in most cases. We can refund items that can be restocked as store credit. Shipping charges are not refundable.
We can deliver wine to homes, offices and hotels in the Santa Barbara area and can ship to all states except Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota & Utah.
This unexpected news was perfect for the Rusack Vineyard expansion. In the hot Santa Ynez climate, wines like Syrah flourish, and with the cool, maritime climate of Catalina, the world of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay would open up.
Steven Gerbac has been appointed Winemaker at Rusack Vineyards. Gerbac has been with the flagship Ballard Canyon winery for 10 years, beginning as a Production Assistant, moving on to Cellar Master, and working his way up to Assistant Winemaker.
At Rusack Vineyards, he will oversee a portfolio of estate-grown, Rhone-inspired wines; the production of Anacapa, the popular Bordeaux style blend, and a Burgundy-inspired selection of Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs from the Sta. Rita Hills and Santa Maria Valley appellations of Santa Barbara County. The Rusack wine program also includes an estate-grown Sangiovese, Sauvignon Blanc and several other notable offerings.
Additionally, Gerbac will be overseeing winemaking for the Santa Catalina Island Vineyards wine project; an elite collection of wines under the Rusack brand umbrella that are grown on Catalina Island.
The March issue of the Wine Analytics Report examines the current winegrape market that reached an uneasy balance thanks to several lighter than average crops and lackluster demand for the wider US wine market. The report also features an in-depth interview with Kent Waliser who is the director of vineyard operations at Sagemoor Vineyards in Washington state and examines the ongoing strength of high-priced wines among direct-to-consumer shipments that grew by 6% in February to more than $372 million.
But what about their wines?Oh yeah. That! Well, I spent at least and hour in their tasting room sampling everything they had to offer. They poured and All-Star lineup. From some very creative whites typical to this region, to some big beautiful reds. The Tasting Room Manager was one of the best hosts I had yet. He was very knowledgeable and only too happy to geek-out about their wines and the region as a whole. He was gracious enough to explore wines off the beaten path and showcase some of their more creative endeavors. It felt more like a field trip.
Each has its own microclimate due to row orientation and specific location at El Rancho Escondido. The wine is fermented in small three-quarter ton containers and gently transferred to French oak barrels, where it undergoes malolactic fermentation and aging for 12 months. Exhibiting distinct aromas and flavors of tobacco, along with earthy notes and a hint of cherry and raspberry, it is truly unique and beautifully balanced. True to the varietal, this offering is very delicate, yet age worthy. One hundred twenty seven cases were produced.
Nestled in picturesque Ballard Canyon in the center of Santa Ynez Valley, amidst oak-studded rolling hills lies Rusack Vineyards, a boutique vineyard and winery dedicated to growing top-quality grapes and producing outstanding handcrafted wines.
The Santa Barbara Vintners (Santa Barbara County Vintners Association) is a nonprofit 501(c)6 organization founded in 1983 to protect and promote Santa Barbara County as a world-class wine and grape region.
The Ballard Canyon property, which was forced to close during the initial pandemic shutdown, used the time to retool its tasting room concept and rethink the entire guest experience, according to Steve Gerbac, general manager and winemaker.
With the recent renovations, visitors to the property will walk through a new entryway where they will be greeted with a splash of a seasonal house-crafted wine. Once seated, guests will be given a customizable tasting menu, which will include an extended selection of by-the-glass offerings, bottle options and specially curated tasting flights.
13.8% alc., pH 3.32, TA 0.70, 136cases, $60. Released November 2017. Barrel fermented100% malolactic fermentation, lees stirring for 4 months.Aged 10 months in French oak barrels, 56% new. Lightgolden yellow color in the glass. Enticing aromas andflavors of green apple, lemon-lime, grapefruit and spice. Anacid-driven style with impeccable oak integration and an acid-fueled,quenching finish. This is a vibrant and flavorful wine that will thoroughlyplease Chardonnay aficionados. Score: 95
Longoria is gentle and soft spoken, and seems to have a boundless interest in new techniques and experiments going on in the winemaking world: from ocean-submersion wine aging experiments to the Italian Ganimede fermenter, which utilizes the CO2 gas that builds up during fermentation to gently percolate the grape must. Longoria now employs a Ganimede for a portion of his Pinot Noir and Tempranillo.
Rick moved on in 1985 to become winemaker for The Gainey Vineyard, a new state-of-the-art winery on the 3600-acre Gainey Ranch. He continued in that position for 12 years before deciding, with Diana, to devote their full efforts to their own wine business in 1997.
This is an intentionally small production operation at about 3,000 cases a year, so Rick can stay hands on and keep the quality high. The wines may therefore be harder to find outside of the California market, but they are well worth seeking out.
Rusack Vineyards is likewise a relatively small operation, with annual production at about 7,000 cases, aimed at making very high quality wines. Steven Gerbac was named winemaker there this year, after having worked his way up, starting in 2003, from production assistant, to cellar master and then to assistant winemaker under John Falcone, who has since moved over to direct winemaking at Gainey.
It turns out that back in 1884, a San Francisco businessman named Justinian Caire also had dreams of an island vineyard. He built a red brick winery and planted vines on Santa Cruz Island off the coast of Santa Barbara, turning it into a very successful winery until Prohibition brought the business to an end in 1932.
Steven explained that they have to fly workers from Santa Barbara to the island during harvest, and that they then fly the grapes, one ton at a time, from Catalina to Santa Ynez to make the wine at the Rusack winery in Ballard Canyon.
Hearing this story about the Catalina Island project, I was dying to try the wines. They did not disappoint. The 2010 Chardonnay is quite complex, with highly unusual salty caramel aromas and flavors, along with more typical lemon, mineral and almond notes. The Pinot Noir also had very unusual, but appealing, aromas and flavors, including salty and dried cherries.
To start with, this wine is intensely aromatic, with dried currant, saline and iodine aromas. The palate includes salty dried plum, lavender bath salt and dried blueberry flavors. That may not sound like the most appetizing description, but believe me, this is a very tasty and unusual wine. It could also benefit from three years or so of additional bottle age. 041b061a72