Rosé is in full bloom, although truth be told, it’s Rosé season for me pretty much year-round for me! With that in mind, I’m cranking up my annual series of weekly “Drink Pink!“ Rosé tastings. It’s my quest for the best Pink Porch Pounders $20 or less! This week’s Rosé is the 2013 Bedrock Wine Company “Ode to Lulu” Old Vine Rosé.
The Winery
Bedrock Wine Co. was founded in 2007 by Morgan Twain-Peterson in a 550 square-foot, former chicken coop with 8 foot ceilings and no fermentation space. After six years of Bedrock being a one-man-show, last year Morgan was able to talk his best friend, Chris Cottrell, into moving to California from New York to join him. With completion of construction of their new winemaking facility they now happily have a little more space to move around. As for that converted chicken coop? Well, the wine tasting “room” is still there! According to Bedrock their objectives are:
- To channel the fruit of ancient vines into powerful, elegant, and distinctly Californian wines.
- To spread the gospel of Syrah in California by sourcing fruit from great terroirs throughout the North Coast.
- To proclaim the greatness of Sonoma Valley Cabernet Sauvignon by sparing no expense on wines of uniqueness and personality.
- To reclaim rose’ from the excesses of saignee and focus on precision, delicacy, aromatics, and food friendliness.
- To make fascinating and quixotic white wines from unique sites and interesting varietals.
- To dream big but keep production low!
There are two things that make Bedrock Wine Co. special in my view – the first is Morgan (you can check out his full bio here), but suffice it to say he’s been making wine since he was “knee-high to a bug” including working harvests in McLaren Vale, Australia and worked as a visiting winemaker at Chateau Lynch-Bages in Bordeaux before returning to California to focus on revitalizing California’s heirloom vineyards. He was recently named one of the Top 100 Most Influential U.S. Winemakers. The second is his vineyard sources. My post entitled Bedrock Wine Co: Where Old Vine Love And Transcendent Wine Making Come Together, focuses on the some of the sources of Bedrock’s fruit. Morgan and Chris have also been working on a sparkling wine project called Under the Wire. It’s unique single-vineyard, single-vintage approach to producing sparkling wines (read more here)
The Wine
This is a Bandol style rosé made mostly from Mourvedre, about two-thirds from the 120 year-old Mourvedre vines in Bedrock Vineyard and one-fourth from Mourvedre planted in the Pagani Ranch in 1922. The rest of this harmonious blend of grapes is from dry-farmed Grenache Gris planted in the 1880’s at Gibson Ranch in McDowell Valley and Carignane planted in the 1950’s from Ukiah.
The fruit was harvested early to retain their natural acidity and resulted in a wine with a modest alcohol of 12.3%.
It seems as the prices of dry rosé has increased along with their popularity. I’m delighted that Bedrock continues to prices this at under $20. I’m finding that most comparable rosé – quality wise are priced above $20.
Heartily recommended. Grab some!
My tasting notes follow:
Orange tinged medium-pink color with lifted wild red strawberry, cherry, chalk, white pepper and a hint of floral aromas. On the palate, medium-bodied and fresh with wild strawberry, sour cherry, a bit of raspberry, and spice flavors underscored with an appealing minerality. Clean, lingering finish. >>Find this wine<<
Rating: A-: An excellent rose that offers great value at around $20!
Pair with: This wine is very food-friendly. Pair with grilled vegetables, charcuterie, grilled tuna or paella
Sample purchased for review
Martin Redmond is a Financial Executive by day, and a certified wine geek with latent foodie tendencies the rest of the time. In addition to the wine lifestyle and food he enjoys family, fitness and traveling. He likes to get thoughts of wine off his mind by sharing experiences on his ENOFYLZ Wine blog, which features wine reviews, wine country travel, and wine and food pairings.