The poet Paul Valéry wrote, “Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees.” But sometimes, it works the other way around. Sometimes naming is the act that lets us see more clearly. Not a definition, but a form of remembering. A way back.

Antikythera pinot noir was nameless, like a Borana child, for more than a year. Litera chardonnay too. Aurata chardonnay took twice as long, and don’t even ask about Angelicall. Antica Terra was a name given to this place long before we got here, and we thought for certain that we would change it. Until we held it tightly enough to warm and soften it sufficiently to understand that no other name would suit a vineyard planted on prehistoric ocean floor. That there was no other name for us, for this work, for this ongoing devotion to the pursuit of beauty and the deeper principles that have forever linked all forms of making.

The name fit before we understood why.

From the ruins of the same two-thousand-year-old shipwreck that gave us the Antikythera Mechanism, divers also recovered the outstretched bronze arm of a philosopher. Nearly life-sized, the fingers slightly curled; the palm lifted, mid-gesture, as if still reaching for a thought. The rest of the statue has never been found, but many believe the figure is Bion of Borysthenes, a provocateur known for asking the kind of questions that unraveled the answers themselves. He saw through pretense. Challenged what was fixed. Kept reaching for what lay beneath. A picture of the barnacle-adorned, bronze arm has been taped to the inside cover of my winemaking journal since its discovery almost eight years ago. It’s a reminder: we don’t know what we think we know — keep reaching, keep asking questions. There’s More.

As I flipped open my notebook this morning to write this letter to you, the single barrel of 2024 rosé from the Antica Terra vineyard that we found, to our surprise and delight, at the blending table earlier this year, had been gently bumping around in our lives as all other newly found wines had before. Nameless, waiting.

Until now.

I see it: we name what we’re given. And in doing so, we begin to see it more clearly. This wine, not an echo of Antikythera, but a continuation of its inquiry. All questions, all curiosity, the deep understanding of all we do not know. We’ll call it Bion. The littlest bottling will serve as our greatest reminder. We know just this — there’s More.