The aromas include hazelnuts, spices used in baked goods, lemon cream made with Meyer lemons, and pears, but the most distinctive feature is the unique minerality reminiscent of stone. The tannins are also well-presented, with a fresh acidity balance and a firm weight and long finish despite the alcohol content. This wine is 100% Ribolla Gialla, a white wine made with skin contact. This technique was developed thousands of years ago, and white wines made with this method are also called orange wines. Ribolla Gialla is said to be an indigenous grape variety common to Friuli-Venezia Giulia and neighboring Slovenia. It has a long history, with a description of Ribolla Gialla in a book written by the Pope in 1296. This Ribolla Gialla is made from precious grapes grown on only seven rows of vines in Mathiasson's own vineyards located west of Oak Knoll in Napa Valley. The history of Ribolla Gialla in California began in 2001 when George Vere, founder of Geyser Peak Winery, brought young shoots with buds suitable for grafting from the vineyard of Josko Gravner, a pioneer of Italian natural wine. Steve Mathiasson was the cultivation manager of the vineyard owned by George Vere. Steve and Jill fell in love at first sight with the bright yellow color of Ribolla Gialla at harvest time, and purchased their own vineyard in 2006 and began cultivating Ribolla Gialla grafted onto 15-year-old Merlot rootstocks. The vineyard is cultivated organically. Owner and winemaker Steve Mathiasson is one of Napa Valley's leading vineyard consultants. His clients include Eisley, Chappelle, Spottswoode, and others, and he is well-known for his well-balanced grape growing. Mathiasson is a small winery run entirely by a family. Steve's white wines are modeled after those from the Friuli region of Italy, and his red wines are mainly Bordeaux-style. He is a hands-on farmer, and does all the work in the fields himself as much as possible. Steve likes to harvest three to four weeks earlier than usual, which is an important factor in determining the taste of wine, and this has surprised the entire California wine industry. In 2014, he was selected as "Winemaker of the Year" by the San Francisco Chronicle, a leading American newspaper, and is a talented young winemaker with great expectations for the future. For Steve Matthiason, making wine is just an extension of working in the fields. The grapes used for Matthiason are harvested from fields in Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley, and Steve himself manages the cultivation of all of them throughout the growing season. Steve is a specialist in reflecting the inherent characteristics and aromas of grape varieties directly in the wine. He is good at not only Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, which are common, but also varieties that are not often seen in Napa Valley, such as Ribolla Gialla and Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso. Whatever the variety, his job is to simply reflect the soil in which the grapes are grown and the characteristics of the variety in the wine. The characteristics of Mathiasson's wines are refreshing, intended to be paired with food, and have a lower alcohol content than regular California wines. By using cultivation methods suitable for each vineyard, he grows grapes with a sense of concentration, suppresses his desire for self-exhibition as a winemaker, and respects the characteristics of the grapes, which makes it possible to create well-balanced wines wrapped in aromatic aromas. He is a former member of In Pursuit of Balance (IPOB), an organization that once took the world by storm in California as an organization that explored well-balanced Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and is known for making elegant and vivid wines reminiscent of Europe.