Everything, At Once

On June 5, the 2025 vintage was tirage-bottled at our production partner in Orcutt, CA. Our three 2025 cuvées are now sealed under crown cap, where they will spend the next two to three years maturing.

The second fermentation will finish in a matter of weeks. What takes years is what comes after: autolysis, the slow breakdown of spent yeast cells that gives traditional method sparkling wine much of its texture, depth, and complexity.

We'll taste the wines every six months, watching them evolve and deciding when each is ready for the next stage. What excites me most is that we already love what is in the bottle. The years ahead are about watching each wine reveal itself, layer by layer, discovering what it will become.

While the 2025 wines settled into their long rest, the 2024 wines continued theirs, and the 2026 vintage is growing on the vine. This year, it seems, everything is happening at once.

In the weeks since bottling, we have been everywhere the project reaches

In the vineyard, the fruit is running as much as 30 days ahead of last year, deep into Phase II, when berry growth slows and the seeds mature. Fiddlestix is already showing 15% veraison. A Meunier block we hope to bring in is already at 60% veraison. If that fruit joins our program, it will bring the third major Champagne grape variety into our cellar.

For sparkling wine, we are always chasing the intersection of flavor development, phenolic ripeness, and acidity. An early season compresses the window for finding that balance. Decisions that might normally unfold over several weeks can arrive almost all at once. So we watch. We walk vineyards. We taste berries. We sample. We pay close attention.

AERILYN has always been built from the vineyard forward. We want to be good stewards of the land and good partners to the people who farm it. The growers we seek share that philosophy. They are meticulous, sustainable, and deeply invested in how their work shapes what ultimately ends up in the bottle.

We have also spent time walking vineyards that could become part of AERILYN's future. Beyond the Meunier block, I found a steep, wind-battered site farmed with extraordinary precision by a grower I greatly admire. She wanted to understand our wine style, our specifications, and what we are trying to achieve. That kind of collaboration is rare. Moments like that remind me of what I'm really looking for. When someone cares for a vineyard with that level of intention, you recognize it immediately. It feels like home.

Planning for the 2026 harvest is already underway: winemaking protocols, winery space, cooperage, barrel and equipment preparation, all taking shape on paper before harvest and before the growing season has reached its peak.

And yet nothing about it feels routine.

Every year I make wines I truly believe in is another year of living something I built intentionally, one conversation at a time. The surreal quality of that has not worn off.

We are roughly a year away from our first disgorgement. After that, the wines will rest for several months before release. At the same time, we are finding our way to the people who will love these wines: refining labels, selecting sustainable shipping materials, building compliance systems, and doing the work required to bring wine into the world and into the right hands.

For years, this project existed as vineyard visits, spreadsheets, cellar work, and long conversations. Seeing it move steadily toward a release makes the future feel remarkably close.

Some days I step back and realize the dream is no longer ahead of me. It is here, and it is still becoming.

Ever curious,

Tammee