CHARLESTON MAGAZINE'S NEW ONLINE DINING GUIDE
The City Magazine Since 1975

California wines with Carolina inspiration inside and out

California wines with Carolina inspiration inside and out
May 2020

The vintners and artists behind these inspired bottles have cultivated their Carolina roots into California wines



(left to right) 2018 PICPOUL; 2018 ROSÉ; 2017 CINSAULT

Time Place Wine Co.

Every Time Place Wine Co. cork gets stamped with an hourglass encircling grapes and a Google Maps pin. And each label, wrapped in abstract landscape photographs by John Duckworth, lists the exact when and where that the John’s Island-based artist snapped the image. The crisply acidic Picpoul is paired with a shot of the Stono River from early evening in mid-July, while the fresh rosé boasts a pink-tinged April sunrise from nearly the same spot. “I get a little teary eyed and nostalgic at those scenes,” reflects Florence, South Carolina-born winemaker Jamey Whetstone, who spent long stretches surfing the Lowcountry coast before moving to Napa, California, to make natural wines from the ground up. timeplacewineco.com

(left to right) 2017 TOCAI FRIULANO; 2018 CARIGAN; 2017 SÉMILLON 

Innate Wines

When describing his low-intervention wines, Innate Wines vintner Nathan DeCamps personifies each as a woman. There’s Sémillon, the fresh, free-spirited, and sassy young girl, who quite differs from the restrained and graceful missus, Tocai Friulano. “Wine evokes a feeling, much the same way as art,” says DeCamps, a Lake City native who left medical school at MUSC to launch his minimalist line out of Paso Robles, California. Each label depicts an original oil by Charleston-based abstract realism painter Whitney LeJeune, who artfully envisions these bottled personalities in female form. innatewines.com

Find these wines locally at Bottles, Edmund’s Oast Exchange, and Graft Wine Shop, among other retailers.