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The Story Behind Carnala 2021 : Organically Farmed Carignan

Man, pouring wine, red wine

“Success is not for the lazy, it is for those willing to put in the effort, sacrifice, and endure the pain of the process.”

As we farm our young vine­yard, ped­dle our new wines and par­ent two teenaged daugh­ters this quote says it all. We got into the wine world long before we stum­bled into par­ent­ing, and we’ve found them to be equal­ly chal­leng­ing, def­i­nite­ly painful in the process, and incred­i­bly rewarding.

red wine, hands, opener, Gibsey Josh Beckett, THibido Winery

The challenging rewards of Carignan

The Car­nala 2021 is sig­nif­i­cant to us because it required intense ded­i­ca­tion and it rep­re­sents our fam­i­ly in many ways. When we select­ed the grapes for the vine­yard, Josh plant­ed a small block of Carig­nan because of his fond­ness for the bright red-fruit char­ac­ter­is­tics, punchy tan­nins, acid and the ver­sa­til­i­ty of these grapes in the bot­tle. Known for pro­duc­ing a vig­or­ous canopy, Carig­nan vines are sus­cep­ti­ble to pests and mildew and require care­ful mon­i­tor­ing and con­stant hands-on care. Much like our own chil­dren, the vines were raised on organ­ic prod­ucts, shield­ed from harm­ful chem­i­cals, and show­ered in atten­tion and metic­u­lous guid­ance. In the fall of 2021, Josh mas­ter­ful­ly shep­herd­ed the first vin­tage from Thibido Vine­yard to har­vest for this very bottle. 

Sydney, Ava, CA2021

How Do You Name A Wine Label?

The name and label have every­thing to do with our daugh­ters, two impres­sive humans we’ve poured our heart and soul into and delight­ed in watch­ing them mature and grow. Our girls share many com­mon inter­ests and tal­ents; Hon­est­ly, we raised bi-lin­gual mer­maids. They both attend­ed a local Span­ish immer­sion school, they surf, swim and play water polo and if ever they’re dragged too far from water they’re gills dry out. Best of all, they’re friends, and the wine’s name ​“Car­nala” has Spanish/​Latin roots as a slang term mean­ing ​“sis­ter” or ​“girl­friend”. Carig­nan orig­i­nat­ed in Spain but has long been asso­ci­at­ed with France’s Langue­doc-Rous­sil­lon region. While trav­el­ing through Spain and the Canary Islands when the girls were lit­tle, they fell in love with two bright­ly col­ored Fla­men­co cos­tumes for danc­ing, com­plete with big Span­ish fans. We snapped a pic­ture of them pos­ing in their out­fits in Spain and put it on the 2011 hol­i­day card and prompt­ly for­got about it until this year. The orig­i­nal pic­ture (shown here) was re-designed by my own sis­ter, our graph­ic design artist, Chelsea Smith, with gold metal­lic ink.

We pro­duced 55 cas­es of this wine com­prised of 83% Carig­nan, 10% Syrah and 7% Mourvè­dre all organ­i­cal­ly farmed and grown on the Thibido Vine­yard. Car­nala 2021 is a reflec­tion of our fam­i­ly, our vine­yard, our cre­ativ­i­ty, and our chil­dren all poured into a bot­tle of beau­ti­ful wine for you to enjoy. 

Released to wine club mem­bers April 20, 2023.

Vis­it our Mem­ber­ship page to learn more about club lev­els, dis­counts and more exclu­sive benefits.