The One Where Tank Goes To Hog Island Oyster Co.

We ❤️ Hog Island Oyster Co.

With incredible acidity and juicy flavors that practically explode in your mouth, California Gigolo is the perfect pairing to the briny sweetness found in oysters, and more specifically, oysters from Hog Island Oyster Co.

While we love taking road trips out to the coast to visit their oyster farm in Tomales Bay, we're grateful to have Hog Island Oyster Co.'s Napa location a hop, skip, and a jump from Tank Garage Winery. Started in 1983, Hog Island is known as one of the top oyster locations on the west coast, raising five different oyster varieties as well as Manila clams on 160 acres of intertidal lands in Tomales Bay. 

So why does California Gigolo work so well with Oysters, you might ask? The Grüner-Veltliner, which represents 60% of the blend, was sourced from the rolling hills of Edna Valley by San Luis Obispo. The vineyard's close proximity to the Pacific Ocean offers diverse soils rich with volcanic and marine sediments, which translates to a complex minerality that works brilliantly with shellfish.

We ordered a sampler of five different oyster varieties: Sweetwaters, Atlantics, Kumamoto, French Hog and Olympia. Our personal favorite was the Hog Island Sweetwaters, which offer a slightly sweet and briny flavor with an almost smoky finish, bringing out the juicy peach and citrus notes in California Gigolo.

A little more on California Gigolo

Every Woman's Dream. Every Man's Fantasy. Or so we're told.

If you're looking for pleasure, let us give you a card for California Gigolo, a sexy, groovy white wine that'll make your tongue moan.

A California blend of 60% Grüner Veltliner, 26% Roussanne, 8% Chenin Blanc, and 6% Grenache Blanc, we went for a quaffable, poundable (😘) style that just tastes yummy. The star of this wine is the Grüner we sourced from the rolling hills of Edna Valley by San Luis Obispo. Just east of the Pacific Ocean, this is one of the coolest viticultural areas in California, with long passionate growing seasons, and diverse soils with volcanic and marine sediments and throbbingly rock hard shale. 

So how did we make it? Picked for flavor, hand-harvested, whole cluster direct to press, racked off of gross less, chilled fermentation in stainless steel and Austrian puncheon! The result is Grüner Veltliner that is both round with flavor while maintaining a fresh and crisp finish. Damn, we love this Austrian grape, it swings both ways. Add in the Roussanne for some additional herbal complexity, plus a few more friends, and we truly have a delicious wine.

How 'bout we unbutton its shirt and get a big waft of that sexy cologne. Wads of gorgeous aromas of citrus and nectarine swirl out of the glass, unzipping the pants to delectable herbaceous flavors of grapefruit, lemongrass, and peach supported by notes of white pepper and dill. With incredible acidity, the juicy flavors practically explode in your mouth, and drip down your neck and chest (RECORD SCRATCH)... ok, maybe we took it too far.

So, ahem, the label.

Sometimes we feel like the only winery truly celebrating the late '70s and early '80s. In this case, we're drawing on our nostalgia and busting out that old Betamax tape we've been hiding under our mattress. Though Betamax would ultimately lose the war against the technically inferior VHS format, we have fond memories of its high-quality presentation and retro packaging. Ok, it's also another nod to old porno films, but if we don't carry that torch, what winery will?