Review: Las Jaras Wines Are Celebrity Juice Done Right

Welcome to InsideHook’s first in a regular series of wine reviews, a vino companion to our weekly spirits reviews.

What we’re drinking: Las Jaras Sweet Berry Wine, Glou-Glou, and the canned Waves

Where they’re from: Located in Sebastopol, CA, Las Jaras is a collaboration between comedian Eric Wareheim (one-half of Tim & Eric) and winemaker Joel Burt. It started as one special release — a single bottling sold at one of Wareheim’s shows — and has since expanded to over a dozen bottles and cans. Grapes are grown in Mendocino, Sonoma and occasionally Oregon.

Why we’re drinking these: I tend to get rather iffy by the concept of celebrity wines. There are dabblings of decent ones — Jon Bon Jovi’s rosé is lovely, as is Mary J Blige’s Friuli whites. I’d certainly fight for Miraval in a divorce. But more often than not, they’re petulant and poor in quality — vanity swill with a celebrity surcharge.

But Eric Wareheim’s is different. First off, he’s clearly a culinary nerd. Many of his Master of None scenes are backgrounded by world-renowned restaurants and peppered with insider food references. Did I mention he had a cookbook (a New York Times best-selling one) where he waxes poetic about Alinea and educates readers on sabering Champagne?

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All this to say, he now makes very good wine. In 2016, Wareheim teamed up with Burt, a winemaker who made his way up through corporate vineyards like Domaine Chandon and focuses now on low-intervention wines, to start Las Jaras.

True to Wareheim form, even the imagery is playful — highly graphic labels are the result of collaborations with artists like Chloe Wise and Jen Stark. One label even has a watercolor portrait of John C. Reilly on it (more on that later). But while Wareheim may be a joker by trade and his designs high-spirited, the wines are serious, precise and clean. There are no hints of barnyard or “funk” to be found; rather, a focus on California grapes made into wines that let them and the land they grow on, shine. It’s comedy plus contemplation, hip but not hipster.

How they taste:

Sweet Berry Wine: This was the wine that started it all. It’s mainly old vine carignan with an added this and that (read: zinfandel, charbono, cabernet sauvignon and valdiguié) that has undergone whole cluster fermentation. The resulting wine is silky and plush with a steely, almost briny nose and blue fruit, deep cherry and a little caraway on the palate – Morgon energy. Decant it for more serious depth.
Glou Glou: This wine is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek homage to France’s glou glou wines; wines meant to chug and glug with fervor. Essentially, it’s pizza wine — Las Jaras dubs this the perfect wine for “circle foods.” It’s made with carbonic macerated 50% zinfandel, 19% carignan and 15% petite syrah, with a touch of Mourvedre, cabernet sauvignon and skin-contact chardonnay. It’s refreshing, enthusiastic and highly chillable, with energetic red fruit and a brambly, blackberry characteristic. More than anything, it’s fun.
Waves White: I’m a keen proponent of canned wine (we love a single serve!) and this one is particularly enjoyable. I cracked a few of these on a ranch in Joshua Tree on a holiday with my in-laws, which was the perfect place to drink this — the wine was highly crushable and a little weird. Draw your own parallels if you please. Made with 50% Grüner Veltliner, and the remaining chardonnay and Chenin, it’s breezy and light with lychee soda energy and nice persistent minerality. Comforting, with sharp effervescence with a slight (but highly pleasant) funkiness.

Fun fact: The very first bottle Las Jaras produced, Sweet Berry Wine, was a bit of a joke. It was largely a reference to a sketch from the Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! where John C. Reilly — as Dr. Steve Brule — sets up to review wines on a local cable access show. As the segment progresses, he goes rogue, ripping back bottles and screeching “SWEET BERRY WINE” with a mouth of stained purple. On Wareheim and Burt’s label, spot Dr. Brule looking dead-eyed into the distance draped in that sweet, sweet berry wine.