Hey Guys- I have been inundated with emails asking for more information on the releases and since most come from berserkers I figured it might be best to just post the rough draft of the release newsletter here. Just remember that this is a rough, there are typos, and things are subject to change (like if when I put together the final blend for the 2010 Bedrock Heirloom it is too tasty not too release I might release it this Fall and save the more truculent 2009 Griffin’s until the Winter, yada yada).
Fall 2011 Release
It is hard to believe that it has already been almost five years since the first harvest for Bedrock Wine Co.! To say that they have been the five happiest years of my life would be an understatement, and for this I think all of you, both old customers and those new to the list, as it is your patronage that allows me my graced existence.
The Fall Release should offer a little bit for everyone and features wines that I am really excited about. It has the first red wines from the 2010 vintage and also a couple of extended barrel-aged offerings from the 2008 vintage. On top of this there is the perfumed and spicy 2009 Old Lakeville Syrah.
First Off, if you are not allocated wines that you want MAKE SURE to indicate what you would like under the “Additional Quantities” column on the order form. Since I am offering “Gauranteed Allocations” to members of the mailing list for five days, I can only guarantee a certain amount. However, there is plenty of wine to be redistributed after the Guaranteed Allocation period is up so everyone on the mailing list should be able to get close to what they would like (outside of the very limited Lauterbach Hill offering). As usual, any wine not taken will be offered to the Waiting List on a first-come, first-serve, basis a week following the first release and those who order then will be added to the Mailing List and receive a guaranteed allocation in the future.
An update on the 2010 wines. As many of you know, the 2010 harvest was not a winemakers wet dream—quite the contrary in fact. A very cool spring and summer gave way to two days on August 23rd and 24th where temperatures rocketed to 110+ degrees. The vines, whose defenses were down, were hit hard by the heat. In certain cases, the amount of damage done to the vines vascular system was such that even clusters deep in the canopy, shaded from the sun, shriveled up and went away. By the end of August it looked like a neutron bomb had gone off at Papera, Lorenzo’s, Dolinsek, and Von Weidlich, which meant there was no crop to be had. In Sonoma Valley, those vineyards that were in cooler locales such as Pagani Ranch and Stellwagen got hit harder by the heat than those slightly farther ahead in veraison. If there was an award for “comeback player of the year” this year it would have to be Pagani Ranch—where owner Dino Amantite’s brutal selection of less than .25 tons per acre yielded a remarkable wine. The Pagani Ranch Heirloom Wine will be released as part of the Winter Release alongside the equally lovely 2010 Bedrock Heirloom Wine. Stellwagen, while quite good in the context of the year, was not quite to the level I wanted it to be so will spend a temporary year being the backbone of the excellent Sonoma Valley Old-Vine Zinfandel included in this release. Ironically, for the challenges the year presented I can say with great confidence that the best Zinfandel I have made is the 2010 Monte Rosso Zinfandel, also included in this release. The vines, perched at 1100 feet above Sonoma Valley, were nearly unscathed by the heat and the rich, spicy, wine, brings me incredible joy.
Looking forward to 2011 we are looking forward to welcoming a few new vineyards into the fold. After two years of eager anticipation, and barring another middle-finger from mother nature like last year, we should be receiving the first fruit from our block at Papera Ranch. Unlike the rest of the vineyard which is virtually 100% Zinfandel, the Bedrock block is only 50% Zinfandel with the remainder being a field-blend of over a dozen other varieties. From just down Olivet Road, Bedrock will also be welcoming our first fruit from Saitone Ranch. The extremely low-yielding vines here, planted in 1896, are the oldest in the Piner/Olivet area of Russian River Valley, and starting this year rockstar Ulises Valdez will be farming the vineyard which should take this qualitatively glorious site to a whole new level. In Sonoma Valley, I am thrilled to be receiving all the old-vine Zinfandel and mixed-white plantings (Muscadelle, Semillon, Chasselas, and Palomino, oh my!) from the vines planted in 1905 at Casa Santinamaria Vineyard. Also, another potential Heirloom wine could be made from the Syrah and Petite Sirah rich field-blend at the small Rowe Vineyard off of Los Alamos Road- just north of Sonoma Valley. In the realm of Syrah there has been one new addition to the Bedrock family; the vineyard formerly known as Shanel when it went into the superlative wines of David Ramey will be the backbone of the Sonoma Coast Syrah wines and also the focus of an extended aging La-La-esque project.
Enough with the prattling and onto the wines of this release!
Whites:
2010 Compagni Portis Vineyard Heirloom White, Sonoma Valley: In 2009 I took this vineyard not really knowing what to expect. Yes, I had tried the excellent wines made by my friend Will Bucklin, and yes, I was besmirched (as I often am by plants from California’s viticultural antiquity) by the nearly 60-year-old, dry-farmed, vines of varieties of many different hues and shades: However, I was not expecting to fall in love. For me, the odd combination of field-blended whites yields a wine that offers a glimpse at the white wines of yore in California. Rose, lychee, and spice come from the Gewurtzraminer, while brightness and enough backbone are given by the Trousseau Gris, Riesling, Berger, Green Hungarian, and whatever else is out there. For me it has exactly what I am looking for when it comes to an heirloom wine—it is a sporadic, seemingly random, assemblage of varieties that can only be found together here in California’s oldest vineyards and makes a wine more indicative of place than variety, spacing, farming, or anything else. That said, farming is important, and this winter I decided, as many men do when their emotions get in the way of their better senses, to lavish the vineyard with some viticultural bling. Decades of minimal farming (and who can farm when getting $800 a ton!) had rendered a vineyard full of blackberries and poison oak, dead vine limbs fraught with eutypa and bot canker, missing vine positions, and limited vigor. This winter vineyard manager Phil Coturri, the Compagni Portis family, and I, started a rejuvenation project. Gone are the blackberries and poison oak stealing the vines water and causing pricks and rashes. A pyre of the fungus ridden vine arms slowly killing the plants was set ablaze. In their stead are a set of new wires, a full conversion to cane pruning to increase the number of spur positions and potential clusters (I love concentrated fruit but .9 tons per acre is simply economically unsustainable), and in the fall the first set of cover crops will be put down to add nutrients back to soil and increase friability and tilth. What does this mean? It means that Bedrock dropped some serious coin, but that we have taken the first step in making sure the vineyard will be around for another sixty years. I say this as preamble to the raise in price from $20 to $24 dollars per bottle for the wine so you will know that I am not simply trying to line my pockets—in reality, selling all six barrels of the wine at this new price will only pay for half of the improvements. Rather, I am hoping you will be willing to join me in preserving this one-of-a-kind vineyard from a bygone age. As for the winemaking, this is a vineyard where I believe simplicity is key. All of the fruit was picked on the same day and whole-cluster pressed, then fermented in stainless-steel and neutral oak barrels with native yeasts. The richness of fruit and spice in 2010 prompted me to halt malolactic conversion to retain brightness to leaven the opulence of the fruit. I am unquestionably pleased with the results. Six barrels produced. $24/bottle.
Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar, May/June 11
Bright yellow. Pungent aromas of grapefruit zest, beeswax, candied ginger and bee pollen. Fresh, light and stony, with taut, dry flavors of citrus pith, pear and candied flowers. There’s a waxy quality here that reminds me of Savennieres. Shows impressive energy on the long, chewy finish, which echoes the waxy note. This is a field blend of more than a dozen varieties, many of them virtually extinct, but it’s primarily gewurztraminer and trousseau gris. 91 points
Reds:
2010 Sonoma Valley Old-Vine Zinfandel, Sonoma Valley: Despite the difficulty of the harvest for Zinfandel, I feel that the 2010 version of this wine is actually better than the 2009. Why? Because though Stellwagen and Puccini Vineyard, which were slated to be vineyard designates were quite good (to be honest even my father is wondering why I am not vineyard designating Stellwagen), I am perhaps too much of a perfectionist for the good of the winery pocketbook. As a result, I am turning the Sonoma Valley Old-Vine bottling into a “super-cuvee” of sorts. The backbone of the wine comes from the 1890’s planting of Zinfandel at Stellwagen, with nearly equal parts of fruit from the 1930’s plantings at Scatena Vineyard (actually a crazy field blend of Zinfandel and the obscure Aubun and Abouriou) and younger vines from steep and rocky terraces of Los Chamizal Vineyard. Add to this a couple dollops of fruit from Kenwood’s Rossi Ranch and a barrel and a half of wine from the 1905 plantings at Puccini Vineyard along with 13% old-vine Mourvedre from Bedrock Vineyard and you have the blend. The wine saw about 18% new French oak from Rousseau, Ermitage, and Orion. As many of you already know, I prefer Zinfandels that are classically structured—that are not shy on tannin and leavening acidity. Though it was impossible to avoid 15% alcohol given the heat-wave in 2010, the fruit got there from being picked sub-24.5 brix and soaking up, rather than being picked at 29 and watered back (a FAR too common practice these days) which makes a major difference in fruit tone (fresh rather than jammy, bright rather than mute). In short, I hope my Zinfandel’s are close to my fathers from the early and mid-90’s. I love Sonoma Valley Zinfandel for its spice, its ageworthiness, and its lyricism—if Russian River Valley is Miles Davis’s Blue period, Dry Creek his Bebop, Sonoma Valley is his Sketches of Spain. This should provide much drinking pleasure over the next 5-7 years. 650 cases made. $23/bottle
2010 Monte Rosso Vineyard, Sonoma Valley: I have been going to Monte Rosso Vineyard since I was a twelve years old kid. It was 1993 when my father started receiving fruit from the storied Martini vineyard and I still remember his excitement and awe. The soils are crimson red, the slopes are steep, and the vines twist upwards from the earth like Medusa’s serpentine follicles. For nine years Ravenswood made one of the best examples of Zinfandel from the vineyard—a testament both to my father’s skill as a winemaker (mountain Zinfandel comes with its own set of challenges), and to the block from which he received fruit. Alas, in 2002, following the sale of Ravenswood to Constellation and the sale of Martini to the Gallo family, Ravenswood stopped receiving fruit from the vineyard. In 2007, when I started Bedrock, one of my first calls was to inquire about fruit. Though the Gallo family generously was able to provide me with the ancient Semillon that makes up the backbone of Cuvee Caritas starting in 2008, it was not until last year that I was told they might have some old-vine Zinfandel available. Now, Monte Rosso is a mammoth vineyard—truly a jaw-dropping Gargantua when you consider it was put in on the rocky side of a mountain in the 1880’s with only dynamite and hand-labor—so I had no idea what fruit I would be receiving. As fine fortune would have it, I was taken to my father’s old block—its beautiful, steep, westerly, aspect and knarled skyward vines looking virtually the same to my 29-year-old eyes as they had 16 years earlier. The 2010 is the best Zinfandel I have ever made. Yes, it is rich and ripe, bearing 15%+ alcohol, but it also carries those things that I love most about Monte Rosso—the mountain spice, the almost claret-like texture, the vibrant red fruits. If you are a tannin maven like me you will like this wine young, but as the many wines I have had from Martini from the 60’s and 70’s show, Monte Rosso Zinfandel has an uncanny knack for aging elegantly for many decades. 300 cases made. $38/bottle
2009 Old Lakeville Syrah, Sonoma Coast: Both the Old Lakeville Syrah and the Griffin’s Lair Syrah were bottled back in March and they are being released together here. It seems fitting as the vineyards are located nearly across the street from each other—though each has its own mixture of clones and farming. However, while the 2009 Old Lakeville seems to open more and more with each bottle I try-- its blue fruited perfume springing to higher and higher levels-- the Griffin’s seems to be doing the opposite. If you must open these wines soon I would choose the perfumed, more delicate Old Lakeville, and wait for the brooding and truculent Griffin’s (currently a lion-bird with an attitude problem) to reform and make itself tolerable to polite company. As befits the vintage, the 2009 version of the Old Lakeville is the most delicate and perfumed wine from the vineyard to date. Each of the three clones were vinified separately in small, one-ton, fermenters. Approximately half of the clusters of the Noir and 877 were foot-trod in the fermenter, adding roughly 35% whole-cluster for spice and texture. Following manual basket-pressing the wine was barreled down to six French-oak barrels of which two were new from Tonnellerie du Rhone and Meyrieux. The wine finished at 14.2% alcohol and was not racked until bottling. This is elegant Syrah reflecting both its cool Petaluma Gap origins and temperate vintage. Six barrels made. $30/bottle
Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar, May/June 11
(vinified with 40% whole clusters): Bright violet. Intense scents of blackberry, cherry-cola and candied violet, with strong mineral and spicecake accents. Shows energetic, peppery, very pure flavors of dark berries and candied flowers. Picks up a wild herb note on the back, finishing sweet and impressively long, with lingering suggestions of tangy minerals and allspice. 92 points
2009 Griffin’s Lair Syrah, Sonoma Coast: It was a great first year to work with the Griffin’s and their spectacularly farmed vineyard. In 2009 I vinified the three clones, Noir, 877, and 470 separately with reach seeing roughly 50% whole-cluster inclusion. Following fermentation with native yeasts to dryness the wine was barreled down to two used demi-muids (600 L barrels compared to standard 288 L), three smaller barrels. The wine saw only 15% new French oak and was not racked until bottling after 18 months. Currently the wine is powerful and dense despite its reasonable 13.8% alcohol. Though it is rather shut-down currently this wine will greatly reward extended cellaring. $35/ bottle
Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar, May/June 11
Bright purple. The most backward of this set of syrahs, with a slow-to-unfold bouquet of dark berries, singed plum and cherry pit. Lush, weighty and ripe, offering slightly warm blackberry and plum compote flavors and slow-mounting smokiness. Finishes broad and smooth, with a whiplash of bitter cherry and peppery spices and excellent length. This needs some time. 91(+?) points
2008 Lauterbach Hill Syrah: The first of two wines in this release from the backroom freakshow at the winery. After vinification with 50% whole-cluster and basket pressing the 2008 Lauterbach was barreled down to a single 500-liter, once-used puncheon. Outside of topping and some minimal sulfuring this wine has not been touched for nearly three years. Brutish, backwards, and tannic in its youth, the wine has slowly developed into a perfumed, rather light-colored (by Syrah standards) wine of elegance. This is not the meaty and primal Syrah— rather, it is the “anti-Hudson Vineyard” in many ways, less about power and more about texture. Though tempted to save all of this for private, ahem, “monitoring”, 35 cases or so will be released to the public. $34/bottle
2008 Red Wine #2: One would think that after letting this wine stay in barrel for thirty months that I could have come up with a better name than Red #2—certainly a failure of imagination on my part. Happily, I think the wine itself is anything but. After a heat-wave at the end of August and beginning of September in 2008 was I concerned about relying too heavily on the Bedrock Cabernet, which seemed to possess some jutting tannins. Since I strongly believe in picking Cabernet at sane sugar levels, and feel that some greenness is part of the varieties natural character, I was not about to hang the fruit to 28 brix to find those “melted” tannins so loved by many Napa counterparts. Rather, I decided to beef up the amount of Merlot and Petit Verdot in the final wine. The 9% Petit Verdot was cofermented with the Cabernet, while the Merlot was vinified on its own. The wine aged in 100% new French oak from Darnajou, Boutes, Bordelaise, and Seguin Moreau for thirty months and was only racked at bottling. Though still possessing plenty of structure I am pleasantly surprised by this wine—it is remarkably close to the old-school claret-style blend I was hoping for. Six barrels made. $38/bottle
Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar, May/June 11
(a blend of 59% cabernet sauvignon, 32% merlot and 9% petit verdot): Deep ruby. Intensely perfumed nose offers explosive dark berry and cherry liqueur aromas accented by vanilla, licorice and pipe tobacco. Deep and sweet but focused, with pure boysenberry and cherry flavors framed by supple tannins. Picks up floral pastille and mocha notes and gains energy as it opens in the glass. Finishes sweet and extremely long, with a lingering mocha note. In a fairly opulent style, but in no way heavy. 93 points
Shipping: Wine from this release will start shipping, weather-permitting, at the beginning of October. Like the past several releases I will be offering a pro-rated Ground shipping rate of $20 on orders of six bottles or more.
Winter Release: The winter release will go out the first week of November with shipments going out shortly thereafter. It is currently slated to include the 2010 Bedrock Heirloom Wine, the 2010 Pagani Ranch Heirloom Wine, 2010 Cuvee Caritas, the 2010 Papa’s All Blacks (a wine made by my father and I and the first wine he has made outside of the Ravenswood cellar), the 2010 Sonoma Coast Syrah, and 2010 Brosseau Chardonnay.
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
![[whistle.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/87d24eb81ec6dc01d84f3d6c19fa9a357e90218e.gif "whistle"){kind=small}