{"title":"Tendu","description":"\u003cp\u003eSteve Matthiasson is one of the most quietly influential figures in American wine. Since arriving in Napa Valley in 2003 with his wife Jill, he has consulted for some of California's most storied estates -- Stag's Leap, Spottswoode, Araujo, Dalla Valle -- while simultaneously building a reputation as a pioneer of low-alcohol, European-styled wines under his own Matthiasson Family label. Named Food and Wine's Winemaker of the Year in 2012, then the same honor from the San Francisco Chronicle in 2014, and a six-time James Beard Award nominee, Steve is perhaps best described as a farmer first: he and Jill grow their own vegetables, raise animals, and treat their Napa Valley farm as an integrated organic system, not just a wine production site.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 2012, the Matthiassons launched Tendu as a deliberately separate project with a clear purpose: to make handcrafted, naturally produced wine that anyone could afford to drink on a Tuesday. The name comes from the French word for tense or taut -- suggesting a wine with grip, poise, and energy rather than one that flatters and flops. The wines come in one-liter bottles sealed with crown caps, taking obvious inspiration from everyday European table wine culture.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMore on how they farm and work in the cellar in our \u003ca href=\"\/blogs\/natural-wine-producers-primal-wine\/tendu\"\u003eTendu producer profile\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"clarksburg-cortese-tendu-matthiasson-california-natural-wine","title":"Tendu Clarksburg Cortese 2018","description":"\u003cp\u003eTendu is the second label from Jill and Steve Matthiasson, launched in 2012 to produce affordable, organically farmed table wines from Italian varieties grown in California's Sacramento Valley. The name is French for taut, and that word describes the wines exactly. This Cortese is sourced from the Lost Slough Vineyard in the southernmost part of the Clarksburg AVA, near the historic town of Locke on the Sacramento River Delta.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLost Slough Vineyard sits on deep clay loam soils in a site that stays cool overnight during summer, allowing the grapes to hold onto acidity through a long growing season. The vineyard is farmed organically by Steve Matthiasson. For the 2018 vintage, the grapes were whole-cluster pressed and fermented with native yeasts in neutral oak barrels. The wine was allowed to complete full malolactic fermentation, which enabled bottling without filtration, a consistent principle at Matthiasson.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCortese is native to Piedmont in northwest Italy and is the sole grape behind Gavi. It is rarely planted in California, making this bottling a genuine outlier in the American wine landscape. At 11.5% ABV, the wine is light on its feet, dry, and driven by citrus and stone fruit character with a mineral, slightly saline finish that reflects its delta terroir. Minimum effective SO2 was used prior to bottling.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe wine is packaged in a short eco-friendly bottle sealed with a compostable and recyclable cork, consistent with the Matthiassons' commitment to reducing environmental impact across the production process.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tendu","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":31015949434973,"sku":"TENDCORT18C","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0019\/3363\/9735\/files\/clarksburg-cortese-tendu-matthiasson-california-natural-wine.jpg?v=1780690392"}],"url":"https:\/\/primalwine.com\/collections\/tendu.oembed","provider":"Primal Wine","version":"1.0","type":"link"}