Etude
Morgan, any prerelease notes yet?
Hey Michael. Ask, and you shall receive!
2000 Vino Bambino Pinot Noir: Yes, this is a wine that I made when I was 19 years old but at that point it was the 14th year I made Pinot Noir. When I was five years old, I asked Angelo Sangiacomo if I could buy .5 of a ton of Pinot Noir from him. Every year until I was 18 the Sangiacomo family delivered a bin of Pinot Noir, free of charge, to Ravenswood for me to make. This gesture is, in large part, why I am a winemaker today and is emblematic of why I love the community I work in so much. In 2000 and 2001, buoyed by placements of the older vintages on the wine lists of Gramercy Tavern, Blue Hill, Aureole, Mesa Grill, and others, I made a little more wine. However, academic pursuits took me away from the industry and the wine has sat in a cold warehouse for the last 11 years. The wine is obviously evolved, but Chris and I both find the developed perfumed and aromatics to be quite enticing- full of rose petals, violets and that lovely kiss of funk that good older Pinot develops. Yes, this is a bit of a Kalin-esque curiosity but I am quite pleased with it. $20
2012 Monte Rosso Vineyard Zinfandel: I have a grimaced visage each fall when I pay the grape bill for Monte Rosso Vineyard as the fruit carries a healthy tariff. But, then comes the moment when it comes to bottle and Monte Rosso shows why it is one of the very best vineyards for Zinfandel in the world (and I inwardly give a inward matre sante realizing I could pay three times as much for very boring Cabernet in Napa). This is one of the all-stars of the great 2012 vintage. It is easily the best Monte Rosso I have made and carries all the hallmarks of the grand cru site. Powerful, with soaring aromatics and the signature citrus blossom and orange oil imparted by the deep red soils draped slinkily over the western shoulder of Mt. Veeder. This wine can be drunk now with serious decanting but should age easily for a decade or more. $39 300 cases
2012 Papera Ranch Heritage Wine: 2012 is the first vintage in the three years that I have worked with this amazing vineyard in the Piner-Olivet area of the Russian River Valley that we have been able to coferment the 40+% interplanted Carignane with the Zinfandel to create the Heritage wine: in 2010 the whole vineyard was lost to the extreme heat of August 24th, in 2011 the Carignane just never made it through the soup of October. The result is a bursting and youthfully rambunctious wine. This will certainly reward a year or two of time-out in the cellar though extended decanting will allow this wine to show well in the short-term. $36
2012 Lorenzo’s Heritage Wine: The soaring return of Lorenzo’s Heritage Wine! This vineyard is actually Teldeschi Vineyard, which my family has worked with since 1984 (and before that Dad work with it at Joe Swan). The wine is named for Lorenzo Teldeschi, the grandfather of the current generation who planted many of the vines. The wine comes from dry-farmed vines planted between 1900 and 1940 on the Dry Creek bench. Composed of roughly 60% Zinfandel, 25% Carignane, and the remainder Petite Sirah, Alicante Bouschet, Cinsualt,Valdigue and a few other odds and ends the wine is my favorite since the 2008 vintage. Dense, beautifully fruited black raspberry and pomegranate, spice, and a framework of dusty tannins, this wine is one of my favorites of the vintage. Sure to be a mainstay of the Bedrock and Peterson family portfolio for many more years to come. $35
2012 Dolinsek Heritage Wine: As usual, Dolinsek Ranch and its 101 year old vines have created an opulent and beautifully fruited wine. The most forward and open wine of the release this will be a lovely wine for earlier drinking while waiting for it s Russian River valley stablemate, Papera Ranch Heritage Wine, to come into its own a bit. This is a delicious mouthful of immediately alluring charm. A veritable Brigitte Bardot in “Et Dieu Cree la femme.” Well, if Brigitte Bardot was a spiced huckleberry. $36
2012 Weill a Way Vineyard: A bit of new and a bit of old. Weill Vineyard is the vineyard formerly known as Shanel, from which David Ramey crafted some lovely Syrah’s. The vineyard was developed by Daniel Roberts, also known as Dr. Dirt, who aided in the planting of many vineyards including a couple used by the Turley-Wetlaufer duo on the coast. As such it carries all the hallmarks of a modern vineyard- tightly spaced, modern rootstocks, cane-pruned, etc… Though the vineyard is still mainly planted to Syrah (and is the backbone of the North Coast Syrah), we converted a small section of the vineyard to a recreated field blend of Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Alicante Bouschet, Grenache, Tempranillo, and Mourvedre. The vineyard is in a cold site that would normally not get many of these varieties ripe but taking advantage of the tight-spacing we limited the vines to one cluster per shoot and dewinged. All of the fruit was harvest at once and cofermented. The resulting wine has great depth and richness, some of the perfume of a cool site but the density one can get with modern farming. $36
2012 North Coast Syrah: As with the 2012 Old Vine this wine hopefully punches way above its price tag. The 2012 is composed of Weill Vineyard, Hudson Vineyard, a couple barrels of Griffin’s Lair, Rossi Ranch, and even a barrel of the gorgeous 2012 Alder Springs Syrah. All of the vineyards were fermented with 40-80% whole-cluster and the wine saw roughly 15% new French oak. This is like a hybrid of the dense 2009 and the intensely perfumed 2011 with all the beautifully savage aromatics of game, pepper, olive, violets and hart blood and with dense, smoky fruit and structure. Hopefully a great domestic alternative to Gonon or Graillot- the two G’s of greatness. $19
2011 Lachryma Montis Late-Harvest Semillon, Monte Rosso Vineyard: Honestly, I don’t even want to release this wine as I would much rather slowly drink it myself over the next forty years. 2011 being the botrytis rich year that it was, this wine came into the winery rife with edelfaule (yes, that’s German for botrytis). In fact, it was an astronomical 42 brix out of the press. It took nearly 10 months for it to finish fermenting to 10.6% alcohol and 212 grams per liter of residual sugar. We got 1.5 barrels of this unctuous marzipan and tupelo honey laced stuff. It is going to last a long time and I doubt whether I will see another vintage in the next twenty that will be this good for dessert wine. $35 for 375 ml.
Thanks!! ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
No dry whites. 
Thanks, Morgan for the detailed notes. Super excited for this release!
These wines sound very nice. Thanks.
![[help.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/4/4030a9a60185376a7393a78002ce3ec0176e975e.gif "help"){kind=small}
Gonna have to get creative this time around.
The 2012 North Coast description made my mouth water…wow…
We drank a 2009 Bedrock North Coast Syrah last week which was outstanding. What a value.
Thanks for the notes!
And please lord grant me an allocation of Lachryma, and if in your divine wisdom you do so also grant me the strength not to consume them in an orgy of delicious immediate gratification. That is all 
As usual, Morgan makes it nearly impossible to keep it to a case. Sigh.
Glad to hear the Lachryma Montis is being released! Allocations will be tight, but better that than no wine.
What a crazy release. Some quick math says, difficult to keep it under 3 cases really.
Add me to the camp with fingers crossed for the Lachryma Montis, I love that stuff. Also very intrigued by the pinot, and ready to load up on the North Coast!
Damn you, Rhys, for putting your Futures offer in the same credit card cycle as this…
Praying for some Lachryma Montis, what a wonderful wine last time around.
Any ideas on how bright (acidic) the Lachryma Montis is?
I’ve tasted it on a couple occasions, and it struck me as having higher acidity and much brighter than the '09, but I’m not sure that’s technically the case. My memory is that this is a stunning wine, but let me say however, as this is a desert wine, the couple occasions I was lucky enough to try it were at the end of meals where a lot of wine had been poured. My memory might not be 100% reliable ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
Just when I thought I figured out how to get my next bedrock order down to 6 bottles I had to go read Morgans notes. Now I’m probably going to lose my grip on my spending again.
I can vouch for Larry drinking too much wine at bedrock events. Always been a big fan of the Lachryma Montis. To date I have consumed 12 bottles. If I had known there was going to be a shortage of this vintage I may have shown some self-control.
Not!
I usually avoid commenting on Bedrock and I’ve never been a fan of sweet wines.
But Lachryma Montis is a revelation.