Gris Gris is a lot of things. In Ghana? It's an amulet, believed to protect its owner from all manner of bad sh!#. In post-'68 America? It's a nigh-magical album that abandons its listener in a lonely swamp, with a gutturally voiced bog priest of dubious reputation one's only remedy. In 2021 California? It's somehow the three-ways perfect moniker for a wine made by Berkeley's own Tracey Rogers Brandt: an amulet (against fire seasons like '21's), a mystical imprecation worthy of Dr. John ("Sazzle a little Gris-Gris in my hand...") *and* the New York Times-acclaimed answer to the question of "What to Do When Life Hands You Climate Change Lemons."
Forced to make rosé as a consequence of the catastrophic fire season, Tracey opted *not* to make innocuous pink plonk from the red grapes she salvaged but to aim higher. Like *way* higher. (“Put gris-gris on your doorstep/Soon you’ll be in the gutter... Melt you like butter/I can make you stutter”).
She took Grenache grapes from three separate sites -- all of which normally made up separate, single-vineyard cuvées (Grenache Gris from Gibson Ranch, Grenache Noir from Fenaughty and Girard)... and then combined it with Pinot Gris from Mendocino's biodynamically farmed Filigreen Farm (the fruit that normally makes up her legendary 'Ramato' wine).
Get it? The first Gris is because it's "Vin Gris" (what southern France calls its rosé made from Grenache); the second Gris is because there's both Grenache Gris and Pinot Gris in here; and, well, naturally the whole can only be 'Gris Gris:' amulet, potion and spell all in one. Wild with notes of ruby red grapefruit, creamy cherry-strawberry, and red apple skin, it pairs as well with New Orleans swamp funk as it does with a Tilden picnic.
