Visiting Abe Schoener and the Los Angeles River Wine Co, an urban winery in Los Angeles
Website: https://scholium.securecheckout.com/
In August 2019 I visited Abe Schoener right at the beginning of the Los Angeles River Wine Company. Back then they had a large facility, it was harvest time, and not many grapes were coming in to fill it. Then, in late February 2025, Nelson Pari and I were in Los Angeles and had a morning to spare, so I called Abe and arranged to meet in their current facility, which is more compact, and now full of wine. He moved here in 2022.
Abe’s first wine project was Scholium, and after a pandemic-caused hiatus Scholium is back, although the grape contracts he had were mostly lost. He’s also still involved in an urban wine project in Brooklyn, New York, focusing on wines from New York State, called Red Hook. And with Raj Parr, who is also involved in Los Angeles River Wine Company, he’s making a range of wines called Scythians.
The emphasis at Los Angeles River Wine Company is making wine from vineyards in Southern California, from appellations such as Cucamonga and Temecula. The current facility is one-third Scholium and two-thirds Los Angeles River, but this will be 50:50 next vintage. And grape sourcing is two-thirds Southern California, one-third Northern California, but will even out with the 2025 vintage. Production is 1300 cases, and this will stop at 1500 cases when the winery is full.
I visited with Abe, Kaeley Weinberger (assistant winemaker) and Matt Beck (cellar master).
Most of the wines are small production (1700 bottles is the largest cuvée), and most are sold directly. Abe says that last year he thought about making more wine so he could sell some inexpensively, but he decided not to because he’d have to make so much more wine to make this sustainable. ‘The wine industry is in turmoil,’ he says, ‘so I feel much better about making a small amount of more expensive wine.’
In 2019 I visited Lone Wolf, just after they had taken this vineyard, at the time unfarmed, over. ‘Lone Wolf is our most important vineyard,’ says Abe, ‘spiritually and in a practical sense. It was planted in 1896 and abandoned in the 1960s. When we first saw it in 2019 most vines hadn’t been pruned for 60 or 70 years.’ In the first year after they pruned them, the vines gave much more fruit, but since then have been up and down, partially because of drought. ‘In drought years wild animals have a lot of interest in the fruit.’ Abe says they are still working out the pruning. ‘I’m not sure we have figured it out yet.’
Another important vineyard for them is Lopez, in Cucamonga. This is farmed by the Galleano family. It is another centenarian vineyard with sprawling Zinfandel vines, untrained. It’s also quite big. He says they finally found some Palomino vines in Lopez, in a part of the vineyard that had been abandoned.
In terms of winemaking, they have made some tweaks. During harvest 2023 Chiara Pepe visited and made some suggestions from her experience, and now they foot tread whites in bins and use a carrot to pull the juice out. It gives lower juice yields, but not terrible, and the quality is really good. They don’t macerate the reds in bins, but rather do it in barrels put upright with the heads removed.
The cellar is quite warm, and they’ve had to make adjustments because of this. In 2023 the wines were fine and sound in March, but between March and June most of the wines underwent a degree of spoilage. The wines would change suddenly: they weren’t completely irreparable, but they were damaged. Eric Sexier, natural winegrower from the Rhône, visited, and they talked about the different microbiology that occurs here: it probably isn’t possible to make a no-added-sulfites wine in this cellar, so now they do some sulfiting. This is a big change from last year.
THE WINES
Los Angeles River Wine Company Lopez Rosé 2024 Cucamonga, California
12.5% alcohol. This is from Zinfandel planted in 1918, harvested in early August and then given the Pepe method, with 90 minutes’ maceration. This is complex and juicy with a sweet core of fruit. Spicy and detailed with lovely finesse and subtle oxidative hints. Warmly spiced with a juicy edge, this is texturally expressive. 94/100
Los Angeles River Wine Company Maglite Blanc 2024 Cucamonga, California
This is from the remaining 17 acres of a 700 acre vineyard planted in 1905 by Secondo Guasti, who planted most of Cucamonga. It’s predominantly Rose of Peru with some Mission. Yellow with a hint of orange/pink. Lovely texture with grapey richness and nice energy. It’s not a high-acid wine, but there’s some phenolic structure, some soapy texture (bath salts!), lavender, and crystalline notes. 93/100
Los Angeles River Wine Company Palomino 2024 Cucamonga, California
This is from vines planted in 1912 at Lopez. It was planted to make California Sherry and brandy. pH 3.9. This is quite a challenge to make: it wants to be microbial even in September, and they’ve had trouble with mouse. For this reason it gets a fair bit of SO2. Made in stainless steel barrels. So salty and textural with some spiciness. Despite the high pH it has a nice brightness and an amazing shimmering tensile edge. Lovely stuff, with just a hint of volatile acidity. 95/100
Los Angeles River Wine Company Lone Wolf Blanc 2024 Temecula, California
They do a differential harvest in Lone Wolf, with two trucks in the vineyard. Whites go to one trucks and reds the other. This wine is made from the light pink to yellow/green berries. Made with the Pepe method. Complex nose with lifted acidity, and some notes of fennel and ripe apples and lavender. The palate is lively, spicy and complex with sweet apples and spices, a touch of honey, and a tingling spicy finish. Such a distinctive wine. 94/100
Los Angeles River Wine Company Lone Wolf Red 2024 Temecula, California
Foot-trodden and fermented in an open top barrel, whole cluster. This is made with a technique called floating cap, where the cap is allowed to dry out and stay floating. Pale red in colour, but surprisingly tannic with floral red cherry and plum fruit, as well as notes of aniseed, plums and a touch of redcurrant. There’s some volatility, but it’s under control, finishing grippy. Such an interesting wine. 94/100
Los Angeles River Wine Company Lopez Zinfandel 2024 Cucamonga, California
Floating cap. Wonderfully spicy, savoury edge to the black fruits nose. Lots of density and energy here with a savoury twist to the sweet black fruits, and notes of black cherries and blackberries, with some herbs and tobacco, and sweet acidity. 93/100
Los Angeles River Wine Company Chiara Palomino 2023 Cucamonga, California
This is a one-off: Chiara Pepe helped foot tread this. 12% alcohol. Salty and refined with nice detail to the citrus fruit core, and some notes of apple and wet stone. There’s a hint of sour cherry on the finish. A lovely wine. 94/100
Los Angeles River Wine Company Lone Wolf Blanc Munoa Ranch 2023 Temecula, California
Wax and honeysuckle on the nose, leading to a tensile palate with fresh lemons, pears and wax, as well as some fine spiciness. Has high acidity and some tension. Very fine with some grapes richness on the mid-palate. 95/100
Los Angeles River Wine Company Lone Wolf Red Muona Ranch 2020 Temecula, California
This was the second vintage from the vineyard, and from 1.9 acres they got 5 tons of fruit. No added sulfites. Red/brick red in colour. This has lovely faded, fine spicy notes with some tannic grip, and has developed in a really nice way. There’s some softness as well as the grip, and some sweet strawberry fruit, as well as some warmth. Mature but delicious, and really fine. 95/100
We also tried two of Kaeley’s wines. I don’t think these are named yet, but they are worth looking out for.
Kaeyley Chenin Blanc 2024 Sonoma, California
This is from Chalone, with granite and limestone soils. So textural and refined with a chalky edge to the pear and citrus fruit. There’s a sweet core of fruit here, and it is textural and broad, but it has nice spicy framing. A complex wine. 93/100
Kaeyley Coombsville Merlot 2024 Napa, California
From rocky volcanic soils. This was the first destemmed red wine in the winery! Floral, bright and expressive with a core of raspberry and cherry fruit. So pure, supple and fine with lovely energy. Fine-grained with great flow across the palate. 94/100
See my report on visiting the Los Angeles River Wine Company back in 2019
