Ghostnote, Super Santa Cruz, Ascona Vineyard, Cabernet Blend

I was at one of those big industry tastings—the kind where every table is lined with bottles trying to impress you, where Burgundy argues with Oregon, Rioja squares off with Brunello, and after a hundred great wines back-to-back, it all just turns into noise. Then I poured a splash from a label I’d never seen before: Ghostnote “Super Santa Cruz.” One sniff and it was like someone cut the power and lit a match—suddenly the room felt different. The fruit comes from the Ascona Vineyard, just a few ridgelines from the legendary Ridge “Monte Bello,” which explains the old-school mountain vibe: high elevation, coastal wind, fractured sandstone soils, nothing but classic Santa Cruz terroir. The nose hit like a memory—forest berries crushed into wet dirt, tobacco pulled from a forgotten coat pocket, a cold forest after rain, wildflowers, and that lifted, soulful perfume old-school California Cabernet used to give us before everything got oak-polished and focus-grouped. Lower alcohol, zero makeup, the kind of texture that makes you want to drink the wine, not evaluate it. Then I learned it was under $50, and I just smirked—because wines that evoke emotions like this normally come with cult pricing and a mailing-list waiting period. If Ghostnote isn’t in your vocabulary yet, it will be after today. Only four barrels exist—full stop—and we have the last of what is available reserved at the winery. If you’re the kind of person who complains that California “doesn’t make wines like it used to,” here is your counterargument: in a bottle, under $50, from a winemaker who’s doing it for love, not celebrity. This is the kind of wine that won’t be cheap for long, won’t be available for long, and absolutely won’t stay a secret.

Ghostnote is the work of Brad Friedman, one of the most quietly skilled young winemakers in the Santa Cruz Mountains—though his résumé reads like someone in his third decade of doing this. Born in Baltimore and raised around wine thanks to his father (a longtime fine-wine distributor), Brad took the science route: a master’s degree in Food Science & Technology from UC Davis and undergraduate degrees in Biotechnology and Chemistry from Indiana University, where he also studied jazz drums—a detail that explains his label’s name. Before launching Ghostnote, he worked harvests in Napa, Sonoma, Portugal, Austria, New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia, then returned to the mountains to take cellar positions at Ridge Monte Bello, Big Basin, and now Thomas Fogarty, where he oversees daily production. His winemaking philosophy mirrors jazz rhythm more than wine marketing: subtlety over power, tension over polish, vineyard over ego. Ghostnote is his way of bottling the quiet details most wines smooth over.

The fruit for the 2022 “Super Santa Cruz” was all picked on September 29th under cool fall conditions and co-fermented as one lot. The blend is 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Cabernet Franc, 12% Sangiovese, and the rest a mix of Negroamaro, Nebbiolo, and Merlot—all from Ascona Vineyard at 2,400 feet on fractured sandstone, basalt, and shale. Native yeast fermentation, gentle extraction, and 20 months in neutral French oak—no new barrels, just old French cooperage. Bottled unfined and unfiltered. Final chemistry: 13.7% alcohol, 3.49 pH—numbers that could have come off a Napa label in 1980, not 2022.

In the glass, the wine shows a deep garnet core with pale pink hues at the rim. The nose lifts with redcurrant, blackberries, tobacco, sagebrush, damp bark, and wet rocks. The palate is medium-plus in body, full of just-picked fruit accented by notes of leather, tobacco, violet, and crushed stone, all framed by a core of mountain tannin that’s firm but never abrasive. Give it 30 minutes in a decanter and pour into large Bordeaux stems and it becomes dangerously drinkable. Age it 5–10 years and it’ll gain even more depth. Serve at 60–65°F—never warm, or you’ll lose all the floral tones. For a brilliant dinner this winter, prepare an herb-and-mustard rack of lamb and you’ll feel like you’re tucked away in a cabin somewhere in the Santa Cruz Mountains.