It’s that time of year… Yes, it’s Rosé season!. With that in mind, I’ve embarked upon a series of weekly “Drink Pink!“ Rosé tastings. This week’s Rosé is the 2012 Broc Cellars Santa Ynez Valley Rosé.
Broc Cellars is an urban winery located in Berkeley, California. The proprietor is Chris Brockway, who grew up on Omaha and attended the University of Nebraska where he majored in Philosophy. After college, he worked in restaurants back home before moving to Seattle, Washington. That’s where he began to take an interest in wine. He decided to move to California to pursue a career in winemaking. He took classes at UC Davis, but transitioned to Cal State Fresno where he studied both winemaking and viticulture and earned his second degree in oenology in 2002. Brockway was named the SF Chronicle’s Winemaker to Watch in 2012.
We are a ‘low wattage’ winery in the sense that we have very little modern equipment. Grapes are pitchforked whole-cluster into the fermenters, fermentation is allowed to happen spontaneously, all wines are basket pressed, with little/no sulphur used in our wines until bottling. True asphalt winemaking, in an urban winery.
Broc Cellars is a small operation (~2,000 cases/yr) located in a small “hole in the wall” facility west Berkeley. Brockway is focused on using minimal-intervention techniques for his wines. The wines are low-alcohol, high acid, low/integrated oak fermented on native yeasts.
I had the pleasure of visiting the winery a couple of months ago, and came away impressed by the wines. I picked up this bottle of wine, and a few others including another Rosé of Zinfandel that I’ll be featuring in the coming weeks.
My tasting notes follow:
Pale salmon color with wild strawberry, peach and a kiss of spice. On the palate, it’s medium-bodied, dry and fresh with an appealing supple mouthfeel. It shows strawberry, watermelon, white peach, spice and mineral flavors. Medium-long finish. Great rose! 50% Counoise/50% Cinsault 12% alcohol
Rating: A-
This is an excellent Rosé. And at $18, the price right. Highly recommended!
Sample purchased for review
Ratings Key:
(A) – 94-97/Outstanding
(A-) – 90-93/Excellent
(B+) – 86-89/Very good
(B) – 80-85/Good
(C) – 70-79/Bleh
(D) – 50-69/#Fail
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This article is original to ENOFYLZ Wine Blog.com. Copyright 2013 ENOFYLZ Wine Blog. All rights reserved.
Martin,
Great write-up of the Broc rosé, which I’ll now be on the lookout for. Did you learn, when talking to Chris, where this might available for purchase? Does he have some local shops that have taken his wine? I’d love to know.
Thanks for your continued dilegence and excellent reviews. Very much enjoy reading them. Keep up the good work!
Tom
Thanks so much for the kind words Tom! I’ll see what I can find out. As far as I know at this point, locally, it’s only available at the winery…
And don’t forget the Provencal roses…Tavels, Bandols…and fabulous lesser known ones. When we are in Provence in the summers, that’s ALL we drink 🙂
Hi Wendy – Oh I’ve not forgotten the lovely Roses of France. I have some I’ll be featuring in the upcoming weeks/months. I’ll also be featuring Rose from Italy and Spain as well! Thanks for dropping by!
Thank you very much! I would like to know where to buy it also!
Hi Vickie! Thanks for stopping by. I’ll see what I can find out!