Vin de soif, vin de garde, vin d’avant-garde. It’s typical to hear the first two terms thrown around casually by French vignerons, but the vin d’avant-garde exists only in the mind of one winemaker. The language that Scott Sampler uses to classify his projects might let you know that he’s thinking more creatively about winemaking than most. The wall of 750-milliliter trophies that decorate his tasting room, the immense stacks of books on Keith Haring or Jean-Michel Basquiat and the antique espresso machine in the kitchen might suggest the same.
Since 2012, Sampler has made incredibly time-consuming, intricate wines born out of a conception that he could make something like the Italian wines he fell in love with grapes grown in the Central Coast of California. Now, in addition to the vins d’avant-garde – his term for the lineup of ambitious, fine wines sold under The Central Coast Group Project (CCGP) label – Sampler has a new concept, this time with a more egalitarian aim.
Over the past decade, he created a niche for himself by producing wines in Santa Barbara County with a major twist. Instead of the typical 2-3 weeks of maceration — the critical amount of time that fermenting juice spends in contact with grape skins during winemaking — Sampler’s wines often undergo hundreds of days of maceration, which are then supplemented with additional years of aging at the winery.
“My favorite wines at that moment and still today are really old Barolos, and old classic Barolos were done in a style that uses really long extended macerations,” he said.
Wines made from the Barolo classification in the Piedmont region of Italy are among the most famous and collectable wines the world over. They are known for great aging potential but also the potential for reticence or austerity in youth. Though winemaking styles are trending towards earlier consumption, classic wines from classic producers in great years can become extraordinary with the significant amounts of time spent developing in bottle.
“I’d been at a Barolo tasting where there was a small producer pouring 20-to-25-year-old Nebbiolo,” he continued. “And they said they had used no sulfur at all. It was a natural wine. And so that blew my mind because the wines were still totally banging; they’re fresh, they’re really complex.”
Sampler took note of the age-old winemaking recipe that these producers were using to create profound, long-lived wines. He also found that applying these techniques mitigated the need for chemical intervention during the process, helping to birth his “neo-primitive” winemaking concept.
Sampler has an unexpected origin story journeying from the world of music video production in Los Angeles to making wine. Prior to becoming a winemaker, he spent his life studying fine art and pursuing a career in filmmaking. He encountered some moderate success in the world of music video production but then a shift in the industry made it tough to pay the bills by directing music videos.
Sampler then turned to a career in independent filmmaking but once again found it difficult to profit from the particular kind of movies he wanted to make. In 2010, he decided it was time to try something different.
“I was at a point where I was frustrated [with] my career,” he said. “I moved to Malibu. My friends had this land up there, and I convinced them it should be a vineyard.”
While planting the vineyard, Sampler would make routine trips to wine retailers throughout L.A. to survey inventory that might inform his work and, in the process, met with a wide variety of industry professionals who took an interest in what he was doing.
“I was intrigued by wine culture,” he said. “For the most part, people are scientists; they’re pretty intelligent and articulate. And I also found people are very generous and people were very encouraging.”
Two years later, Sampler moved on from the vineyard to produce his own line of wines that would become The Central Coast Group Project, a nod to all the friends and family that helped make his wine possible.
As a philosophy, Sampler largely espouses natural winemaking but was working towards a goal: intense, ageable wines that remain out of vogue in a natural wine world focused on fruit-forward and easy-to-drink wines made for immediate consumption.
Fellow natural winemakers at Lo-Fi Winery, Mike Roth and Craig Winchester, recall sharing equipment with Sampler while working nearby in Buellton, which often led to discussions about winemaking technique and philosophy.
“I like to debate Scott about science and winemaking,” Roth said. “At that time, it was also that people wanted low alcohol. Scott was doing all these things very similarly – not using sulfur and all these other things – but that he should maybe try to dial back the alcohol and make wine that he could sell right away.”
For Jamil Williams, the Operations Manager at Amy Atwood Selections, Sampler’s L.A. distributor, The CCGP wines bring an intensity and power that exists in contrast to nearly everything else happening in the natural wine community.
“I’d never tasted anything like them before,” Williams said, recalling his first taste of Sampler’s powerful wines made from Syrah and skin-fermented Viognier. “Since I’ve been in the business, the trend has always been lower-alcohol, high-acid, Loire, patient zero style wines…. They were not looking for that style of wine – especially at that price,” He adds.
And while Sampler found a market in niche retail environments and high-end restaurants, the prices were high – often hovering around $100 per bottle on retail shelves and far more on wine lists across the country – and excluded a wide swath of drinkers from casual consumption.“They’re expensive wines and low-production expensive wine,” Sampler said.
“I wanted more people to drink,” he continued. “I felt like I had something to offer in terms of wine at a lower price but made with the same kind of attention to detail and experimental, fun spirit that the higher end ones are made with.”
Williams spoke about workshopping the concept with Sampler, “Our conversation was like ‘Hey, man, we need to get you on stage. Because what you’re doing and your style and your approach needs to be more approachable,’” he said.
So, in 2019, Sampler set out to produce additional kinds of wines. Namely, Scotty Boy Fine Wines & Super Coolers, his take on jovial vins de soif (wines of thirst) that retain his sense of artistic ambition but are priced within the reach of most wine drinkers.
Now, unlike the wines from the Central Coast Group Project – which are released four to seven years after harvest – Sampler can get wine bottled and ready for consumers in four to seven months.
Some of Sampler’s Scotty Boy releases have included a cheeky co-fermentation of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir called El Sandweech and a blush wine made by adding together a proportion of red and white varietals to achieve a rose-like hue. He also makes an orange wine named Buellklong – his California riff on an incredibly popular wine made by the notable natural wine producer Meinklang in Austria. Additionally, all of the Scotty Boy wines are sold by the winery for under $30.
“I felt like it was important to have a wine that was truly punk rock,” he said. “The whole idea is to just have fun. And to almost have a wine where it’s so fun that no one’s even talking about the wine.”