EDIBLE: Monterey County enjoys a lot of new and promising wines, including three new debuts.

Wine comes in vintages. So do the people who make it. And the two vintages I’m looking at are getting very interesting.

Ian Brand has staked out a place on the vanguard of local and statewide winemaking. He seeks out bold and atypical collaborations – and they seek him – because he believes Monterey County can be much more than superlative coastal Chardonnay and Santa Lucia-style Pinot.

As the Weekly reported in naming him one of “25 for the next 25 [years]” (for the paper’s 25th anniversary): As epicures grow more ambitious, he’s positioned nicely. “Millennials have more refined palates than boomers,” he says. “You have to adapt and progress. Wine in California is changing.”

They won’t be the area’s wines of yesterday, but they will be Monterey County.

“We are about looking into the soul of the place,” Brand says. “Our local wines are great. But great isn’t good enough. They need to be compelling.”

When we caught up this week, he was presenting his portfolio to a range of clients in New York City, where he’s had a presence for a few years.

At his unmarked industrial building on Dayton Street in Salinas, which he’s had for three vintages, he works on as many as 60 wines at once, with a little less than half coming under the Ian Brand Family of vinos. He’s ramping down his winemaking for Pierce Ranch Vineyards – which reached as many as 15 interesting Tourbillons, Tourigas and Temperanillos at a time – as he’s helped them plan and open their own vineyard facility in Lockwood. He’s mixing Pinots out of Prunedale for Kevin Olson. Then he’s got his growing index, which often centers on esoteric grapes: Five Le P’tit Paysan wines and four Spanish-leaning La Marea labels (an Albariño and three fascinating single-vineyard Grenaches). He’s about to introduce the I Brand and Family label, for flagship stuff like a Paicines Valley Cab Franc and a Chardonnay he’s been aging since 2010.

Trio Carmel on Dolores (250-7714) has the full lineup, but there’s news there too: Brand will move into the former Coastview tasting room space in Carmel Valley, making for a spectacular strip of local wine, including Chesebro, Joyce and now Brand in a total of about 10 steps. Ideally it opens Aug. 1. (Coastview will continue the brand and its contract growing for people like Brand, they’re just discontinuing the tasting room.)

Brand feels like his message of experimenting with unfamiliar grapes that thrive here – and express their terroir in striking ways, as does his Grenache – has gotten more traction for a simple reason. (Or at least one that sounds simple.) “We’ve gotten better at the winemaking,” he says. “There’s a precision and purity that wasn’t there two or three vintages ago.”

He has company in his craft. He flags Joyce – fresh off 90-point love from Wine Spectator for its Tondre Grapefield Riesling – and Figge Cellars, AlbatrossRidge and Odonata Winery as peers coming into their own and making the most of the area’s soils, microclimates, cool nights and mineral elements.

They represent some of the most intriguing juice in the area, bringing bright acid, mineral identity, aromatics and even what Brand calls “umami.”

“It’s like a voice that hasn’t been there before,” he adds.

There’s another commonality with that current vintage of yum: Many of them enjoy young, committed and passionate assistants – members of the next vintage of winemaker – who are now embarking on their first wines.

Emily Hunt works with award-winning Greg Vita at Caraccioli Wines. She recently introduced two wines – an Urchin red blend and a Rosé – under her debut Drench label, which was inspired by her travels to wine regions around the world. As she writes on her website (www.drenchwines.com, where the wine is also available), “Drench is a product of heart and intuition, of taking opportunities as they come and drenching yourself in them. I started Drench because I love the process and lifestyle of making wine. This is no drink to be placed on a pedestal, but one to be shared with friends and family, a drink to relax, to contemplate and to carouse with.”

Miguel Lepe enjoys a special synergy with winemaker Peter Figge apparent in their ever-improving wines. He launched his own Lepe Cellars this year, as I reported in January, he found some grapes he liked from Arroyo Seco and Santa Lucia Highlands for his first vintages, a Gewurztraminer ($20) and a Chardonnay ($20), respectively, and the results are consciously different than what’s out there, and available at places like Star Market and WharfMarketplace.

And Ryan Kobza assists Brand. He tends a couple of acres of Pinot at Suncoft Vineyards 1,200 feet up next to Albatross Ridge. He also works with ancient vines of a Riesling sourced from Wirz in San Benito’s Cienega Valley and Rosé from the obscure and exceedingly rare Mourtaou grape, also from San Benito (the Enz vineyard). From his website: “These wines are lively, fun, and spirited, made with ardor and in earnest from varieties that excite us. Our grapes come from small, family-owned vineyards that maintain a unique identity.” Carmel Belle, Casanova and il Grillo are among those who carry his bottles.

More good news: “They’re on their first vintage,” Brand says. “They’re going to evolve.”

In other words, get better with age.

~ QUICKBITES ~

• The Big Fish Grill (372-7562) on the end of Fisherman’s Wharf has introduced a new locals menu with things like chicken picatta, sand dabs, and seafood fettuccine, available daily, for $13.95 with clam chowder or mixed green salad.
• Fujiyama is now open at 1000 N. Davis Road in Salinas (422-6888), doing Japanese dining and specialty foods, hibachi seating and a sushi bar.
• Another new one in Salinas: Mi Taqueria El Kiosko 2 (444-7980) at 1502 Constitution Blvd.
• Working menus with the new restaurant (a merger of popular Pacific’s Edge and California Market with a dramatic new deck) include a number of enticing items, like lemon poppy seed French toast, chicken sofrito empanadas, short rib tacos and line-caught sea bass with almond gazpacho and sunchoke chips.
• American Craft Beer Week is here. Peter B’s BrewPub (649-7874) celebrates with half price growlers, $4 pints and $6 mugs all week, a food-paired Beer Education Night 5-7pm Friday ($15), May 20, and live music 3-6pm Saturday, May 21. Alvarado Street Brewery debuts its production brewery/tasting room in Salinas (at 1315 Dayton St.) 6-10pm Thursday, May 19. See p. 24 and look for photos on the blog. Out in Carmel Valley, Trailside Cafe’s beer garden (298-7453) opens for summer 4pm Friday, May 20, with live music and deals on well-curated craft beers. Hours: Friday-Sunday 4-9pm.
• Carmel City Council has tabled the Seventh and Dolores food-market-wine concept from Carmel Belle indefinitely.
• New Salinas wine country spot River Road Grill (998-7822) has started an advertising campaign, which is a sign it’s ready for its closeup. It’s open 11am-9pm daily, except Tuesday.
• Heller Estate ladybug release party 2-5pm Saturday, May 21 (659-6220, $40-$45) at the Cachagua winery with tastings, snacks, tours and organic fun.
• Barmel (626-3400) rolls out a new happy hour with Brandon Miller yum stuff: $5 everything (including the stellar and rotating “staff meal”), house wines $5, tap beers $4, bottled beer $3-$4 from 4-6pm daily and all day Mondays. Paella on the patio weekends too.
• Tyrion Lannister: “Everything is better with some wine in the belly.”