Home Industry News Releases Jillian Johnson Deleon Launches Her Second Wine Brand – Mentida Wines

Jillian Johnson Deleon Launches Her Second Wine Brand – Mentida Wines

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“Wine Without Consequence” – Wines to go hand in hand with your guilty pleasures

June 25th, 2019 – Napa, CA: Known as the ‘Wine Doctor’ of Napa, Jillian Johnson DeLeon serves as a technical consultant for many winemakers in the valley. She is also the founder and winemaker of Onesta Wines, a thriving micro-winery devoted to single-varietal, Rhône-style wines from unique California vineyards. Her newest wine adventure, Mentida, is focused on flavorful blends of less well-known varietals. These labor-of-love wines show off her technical expertise and the master blending skills she has developed in her 18 years of winemaking.

“I love working with non-mainstream grape varieties,” says Jillian. “It’s probably all the years I spent working with Randall (Grahm) at iconoclastic Bonny Doon.”

“Mentida” means guilty pleasure, which embodies how many wine lovers, including Jillian, want to enjoy a delicious bottle of wine. Without feeling obligated to contemplate the soil profile of the vineyard or the type of barrel used … to simply savor pure unrefined pleasure in each glass; to wine without consequence.

The first releases include a 2017 White Blend, fruit forward with a hint of French oak filled with aromas of peach, nectarine and Meyer lemon; and a 2016 Red Blend, rich & robust with fruit notes of juicy blackberry, blueberry and plum, balanced with mocha and vanilla spice.

About Jillian DeLeon

Jillian found her passion for wine while studying neurobiology at UC Davis. She graduated with her Viticulture & Enology degree in 2001 and soon thereafter found herself traveling the globe making wine in McLaren Vale (South Australia), Margaret River (Western Australia), and Stellenbosch (South Africa). After three years of hopping hemispheres, she settled at the infamous Bonny Doon Vineyards in 2004 where she had the opportunity to make a wide range of wine styles from over 30 different grape varieties.   

Now a seasoned winemaker, she works as a Winemaking Technical Consultant for Laffort and has her own boutique wine brand, Onesta. Her experience working in large and small-scale wineries has given her the expertise to find solutions to most winemaking situations in the cellar. Jillian enjoys helping winemakers improve their protocols, troubleshoot difficult wines, and educate people on the technologies available today.

About Grady Sibert

The son of a contractor, it was perhaps only natural that Grady would spend a bit of his professional life in the construction industry. He’s built parks in San Francisco, worked on the pier that the USS Missouri is moored at and put in the giant sewer line that AT&T Park hooks into. After being hired to construct the wine caves at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars he segued into the wine business and went on to manage prominent Napa Valley properties, including Quinetssa. Now Grady is tasked with the sales and distribution of Onesta and Mentida.

Distribution

Mentida is currently interviewing distribution partners across the United States. For distribution information or to get Mentida into your establishment, contact Grady at guiltypleasure@mentida.wine. The Mentida portfolio is line priced with a suggested retail of $20 per bottle. Mentida.Wine

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