{"title":"Welcome Stranger","description":"\u003cp\u003eWelcome Stranger is a California natural wine project that asks very little of itself in the way of introduction. The wines speak through their unusual blending logic and zero-sulfur approach, drawing on certified organic fruit from a single Mendocino ranch to produce something that resists easy categorization.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe project sources all of its fruit from Open Hand Ranch, a 10-acre family-run vineyard in Mendocino planted in the 1980s with a field blend of Merlot, Chardonnay, and other varieties. The ranch is farmed organically and has become a destination for California natural winemakers seeking quality raw material from a reliably interesting site. Welcome Stranger's identity is shaped almost entirely by this relationship with one farm and one small piece of Mendocino County.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMore on how they farm and work in the cellar in our \u003ca href=\"\/blogs\/natural-wine-producers-primal-wine\/welcome-stranger\"\u003eWelcome Stranger producer profile\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"optical-illusion-welcome-stranger-chardonnay-merlot-natural-wine","title":"Welcome Stranger Optical Illusion 2019","description":"\u003cp\u003eOptical Illusion is an 80% Chardonnay, 20% Merlot blend sourced entirely from Open Hand Ranch, a small family-run organic vineyard in southern Mendocino County. The vines were planted in the 1980s across roughly ten acres on a 100-acre property in the Ukiah area, surrounded by oak savannah and native plants.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe winemaking technique is the source of the wine's name: Chardonnay is direct pressed and its juice is pumped directly into whole-cluster Merlot, where the two ferment together with two weeks of skin maceration. Everything is then pressed into neutral oak and vinified without any added sulfur. The result reads as a red wine, but carries a transparency and lift that belies its white grape majority.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn the palate the wine is light to medium in body with lively acidity. Expect fresh red fruit — strawberry, cranberry — alongside a faint earthy, loamy quality that reflects the ranch's organic soils. The texture is supple with minimal tannin, driven more by the Chardonnay's direct-press freshness than by Merlot structure.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWelcome Stranger is a collaboration between Pierre Gastaldello of Bobo Selections and Alex Pomerantz of Subject to Change Wine Co. Both projects prioritize single-vineyard, organically farmed California fruit with minimal cellar intervention.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Welcome Stranger","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":34574317551768,"sku":"WELCOPTI19C","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0019\/3363\/9735\/files\/optical-illusion-welcome-stranger-chardonnay-merlot-natural-wine-deslop.png?v=1784582992"}],"url":"https:\/\/primalwine.com\/collections\/welcome-stranger.oembed","provider":"Primal Wine","version":"1.0","type":"link"}