I think some of the limited releases sell out before the week ends. Allocations are based on time on list and past purchases.
Is the wedding cuvee a field blend? Anyone try it - thoughts?
The Wedrock is a best of the barrels blend of Zin. I’ve had it and it’s excellent.
The new one super cuvée is called Buffalo Zin and follows a similar best of the barrels process. Supposedly very little was made according to the podcast.
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I think Morgan is in Taos for the Winter Wine Fest, but if you are reading this Morgan and have preliminary notes, we’d appreciate it. Thanks.
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Seconded!
Hi all- Yes, sitting in the Albuquerque airport waiting on the plane back to SFO. Here are the preliminary notes with the usual caveat that there might be some typos, grammatical issues, and a few sentences or two that need tweaking.
2021 Ode to Lulu Rose, California:
Always a centerpiece of the Spring Release, the 2021 Lulu is a stunner. The tiny crops of 2021 meant that there is an extra degree of concentration in this wine. Also, because vines were struggling due to drought so much in Contra Costa County, we opted to pick some of our best Mataro/Mourvèdre parcels (all of Pato, some Evangelho, etc.) at lower sugars for rosé to take stress off of vines already doing some hard duty. Though the wine is, as always, based around old vine Mataro, we were also finally able to secure some great looking Cinsault and Grenache from a vineyard in northern Dry Creek that adds beautiful top note and perfume. All in all, one of the most complete Lulus we have made. I can speak from experience: this is dangerous stuff; the first few bottles we have opened have disappeared a little more quickly than expected!
2021 Sonoma Valley Sauvignon Blanc, Sonoma Valley:
I am stoked that this wine is batting lead-off for the 2021 white wines as I think it showcases all the strengths of the fantastic, but tiny, vintage. Small crops, combined with a mild August and early September, made for a bounty of dense, perfumed fruit that retained mouth-watering freshness. The core of this wine is Uboldi Vineyard, located on north-facing ridge behind the town of Sonoma (Puccini, Rossi, and other great sites are on the other side of the ridge). Strewn with rocks and cobble, the Musqué clone here is aromatically expressive and rich, benefiting from the hot days and cold nights of upper Sonoma Valley. The balance of the wine is made from Bedrock Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc, which adds tension and an added dimension of density. Entirely barrel fermented in a combination of neutral 320-liter cigare barrels along with a small quotient of new oak from Stockinger, Sylvain and Baron.
2019 Alta Vista Gewurztraminer, Moon Mountain District:
A thousand feet above the town of Sonoma, in a 2.5-acre clearing surrounded by oaks, laurel bay and coyote brush, lies Alta Vista Vineyard. In the spring the ground is strewn with chamomile and the 1/3rd mile path to reach it crosses streams scented with California’s distinct member of the mint family, Yerba Buena (Mentha spicata). This vineyard encapsulates almost all of my scent memories of childhood, and the wine that comes from its 1940s-planted vines is as indelible, vivid and perfumed as the place. Mountain acid makes for a buoyant and elegant organoleptic landscape full of florals and spice. The hills of Sonoma Valley in a bottle.
2020 Papera Ranch Heritage Wine, Russian River Valley:
Located at the heart of the Piner/Olivet area of Russian River Valley, this vineyard is one of the great crus for old vines in California. The wines from this ranch combine the vibrant, blue-toned fruit of the Russian River Valley with the density of low-cropping old vines. Our block of the ranch, which includes eleven different varieties along with a large slug of Carignan, plays up the natural brightness of the site with the added spice and energy brought by the mixed varieties. Always one of our most consistently excellent wines, it is no surprise the ranch brought the good despite the challenges of 2020.
2020 Limerick Lane Zinfandel, Russian River Valley:
Our little block of vines, planted in 1910, yielded a tiny but intense crop of fruit in 2020. As always, this wine captures the perfume of Russian River Valley but reflects its Healdsburg address in its added weight and richness. Rightfully one of the most famous vineyards in California; we feel very fortunate to get to work with it. Production is pretty tiny, so allocations will be more limited than we would like them to be.
2020 Nervo Ranch Heritage Wine, Alexander Valley:
One of the team’s favorite wines of the vintage, this is a classic expression of Nervo Ranch. Though Zinfandel makes up a chunk of the wine, it is the other varieties here—the ones that make this a “heritage” wine rather than a “zinfandel”—that sing lead in the choir. The dense and feral Petite Sirah, the structured but perfumed Grenache, the white pepper laced Negrette, the spice and exoticness of Trousseau are all here channeled by the meager, decomposed shale that defines the hills southwest of Geyserville. Tasting through previous vintages, we’ve discovered that Nervo is one of the slowest developing wines we make; the 2013 and 2014 vintages are just cracking their cocoons of youth and showing the detail on unfurling wings. The 2020 will undoubtedly take some time to knit but will bring great rewards.
2020 Hudson Syrah, Napa Carneros:
In my favorite examples of Hudson Syrah there is an element of the primordial, like the pan drippings of dry-aged steak, something darkly inflected and faintly savage. Of course, there is great beauty to Hudson at its best, so I think the wine is more like the Allen Iverson stepover on Ty Lue rather than Pete Rose sliding into Ray Fosse. Maybe it was the frustrations of 2020 getting to me, maybe it was not knowing whether the wine was going to be OK, but in 2020 we took the shackles off Hudson and let it be the beast it wants to be. The result is my favorite version of the wine in several vintages and a throwback to some of the wines we made back in 2009 and 2010 from the site (which have aged beautifully). The wine is dark and oozes all the dark toned Syrah notes we love from a warmer vintage at a cool site. With a day of air, violets appear, showing the grace lying underneath.
2019 “Buffalo” Zinfandel, California:
After having so much fun making the Wedding Cuvee in 2018, we decided that we would try our hand at a so-called “Super Cuvee” again in 2019. It seemed fitting that we would make this wine an homage to my father Joel, who spent his entire career advocating and teaching the world about the possibilities of Zinfandel. The label, a Buffalo, is a reference to his best clean joke (please listen to the podcast to hear it). Focusing on our favorite barrels from the best lots of the year, the wine is more about crafting an ultimate expression of Zinfandel rather than coaxing out site character. Though the wine carries the “California” designation to allow ultimate flexibility in choosing lots, the 2019 is entirely from Sonoma County. Like the 2018, this is based around Old Hill Ranch and Bedrock Vineyard but is supplemented by fruit from norther Sonoma. The first of these is Block 9 from the 1896 plantings at Nervo Ranch, a block that adds perfume and spice. The second is the mother block at Teldeschi, always one of the best Zinfandel blocks we work with from the oldest vines at John’s place. We only produced five barrels of this, so unfortunately it will be tightly allocated.
2020 Evangelho Carignan, Contra Costa County:
I cannot tell you how many times we have flirted with making an Evangelho Carignan. We have long seen the tremendous wines made from the variety by Neyers, Desire Lines, Cruse, Calder and others and have taken great pride in them. Also, it is our ranch and we have access to the best sections for the variety, but we have always found it to be too important a component in the Heritage Wine or blended elsewhere to let it shine on its own. No more. This wine comes predominately from Block 14, which sits atop the knoll in the very center of the vineyard and always has some of the most balanced and delicious fruit on the ranch. It is also one of the blocks that has a good amount of interplanted Mataro in it, which is included in the fermentation, which helps push more exotic perfume. Fermented with 40% whole-cluster to add brightness and spice this was aged in neutral, predominately large format barrels. Dark but bright, this is a really fun expression of the deep-sanded Evangelho terroir.
2020 Enz Cabernet Pfeffer, Cienega Valley:
2020 was our final year working with Enz Vineyard, and we felt that we had no choice but to make a little bit of this quixotic and distinctly “San Benito” wine. Cabernet Pfeffer’s past has long been shrouded in veils of myth. Some say the variety was a cross created by William Pfeffer of Cabernet and Trousseau; others say the Pfeffer (German for pepper) refers to the pepperiness of the variety. All are lovely stories, but genetic analysis shows that Pfeffer is actually a relatively rare variety from the southwest or Aquitaine of France called Mourtaou. If this all sounds a “petit fou” or a “little crazy,” that is fitting as that is actually one of its regional names in France. Coming from centurion vines planted in limestone and decomposed granite, this shows off all the pepper and perfume the variety is known for. In terms of weight and color, this is much more in the vein of Trousseau or Gamay- lightly colored and perfumed. In many ways, this is what makes it so compelling as it withstands the warm sunlight of the Gabilan Range yet still makes for a wine of elegance. Petit fou, indeed.
2020 Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon:
When my father bought Bedrock back in 2004, his right-hand at Ravenswood wryly commented that my dad had bought an incredible Cabernet site with a lot of old vines on it (then again, people were really into Hoobastank in 2004, so clearly cloudy judgment was in the ether). His comment reflected some kernel of truth, as the Cabernet from the site has a history of being very good (for a long time it was being sold to a famous Napa winery). Happily, the old vines and Cabernet can cohabitate together peacefully. Starting in 2020 we were able to start working with the Cabernet in a more focused manner as the contract selling it elsewhere finally expired. The 2020 Sonoma County Cabernet is built around fruit from two of my favorite blocks on the ranch- areas that show off the richness and intensity of the site. A touch of Monte Rosso Cabernet was added to give perfume and lift along with a couple barrels of Bedrock Merlot for flesh and little more immediate friendliness. I have no doubt this will age well, but hopefully the modest tariff will allow people to open bottles and evaluate it for themselves. This is one of the best values of the vintage.
2020 Monte Rosso Cabernet Sauvignon
Our only vineyard designated Cabernet from 2020, this wine shows the remarkable pedigree of this world-famous vineyard. Our block lies on the south side of the ranch on some of the reddest and most iron-rich soils (in a vineyard famous for its red, iron-rich soils, this is saying something). Composed of mature vines planted in the 1990s on a lyre trellising system (see a video we did about this here), the fruit always shows the soaring perfume, pepper, weight, compelling cassis fruit and individuality of mountain Cabernet from this site. Raised in smaller 225 liter barrels this saw about 50% new oak from our favorite coopers for Cab- Taransaud, Boutes and Sylvain. As with most wines from us and this site, this will benefit from some time sideways as we tend to pick on the earlier side in an attempt to make a more “classic” expression of Cab,
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Can’t wait, great line-up… Fingers crossed for some Buffalo and Monte Cab!
Other than Kutch, this is the label I probably buy the most of…very excited!
Just when my credit card thought it was safe after the Berserker Day bloodbath…
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Every year, I tell myself I will buy nothing buy Rose and SB from this release. And then, every year, I read the release notes and that plan goes kaput.
Yeah, I’m thinking that there is a record number of wines that I feel the need to buy.
Opened a 2020 Lulu tonight. If 2021 is any better with the Cinsault, we are in for a treat.
Haha, same here. This is looking like a two case order easily…
Just listened to the podcast. Great info and stories, and it’s fun to hear the back and forth between Morgan and Chris. They seem like great guys and I’m sure it’d be a hoot to share a bottle and hour or so with them.
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Curious to hear how much of the Cabernet folks are planning to buy given the challenges of 2020.
I’m all in.
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I don’t think Morgan & co are going to put their good will at risk. I trust them when they say they’ve tasted, tested, and deselected.
For the record, I’ve not noticed any smoke on the 2020 OVZ.
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We have gone to enormous lengths to ensure that any wines we are releasing are completely free of any smoke concerns. This is what I wrote in the Fall Release newsletter about it:
Wildfires and Smoke
Though I prefer to talk about more fun aspects of winemaking in these letters, I think it is essential to talk about fires and their impact on wine quality. As winemakers start to discuss the 2020 vintage, I have seen too many doomsday screeds about the wines that do not line up with the reality of the situation or the science. The whole topic IS immensely complex, but the good news is that we have a strong and continually expanding body of research to help us evaluate whether wines have been exposed to quality-damaging levels of smoke and the degree of that damage. Additionally, we have spent an enormous amount of time and money sending samples to Australia (where labs are better set up for testing). Virtually every single lot harvested in 2020 was sent multiple times to build a strong data set for evaluating which wines are unaffected and which are potentially problematic. We have been extraordinarily pleased to see that the majority of lots in the winery are completely fine (and quite delicious!). There are certainly some unfortunate results (there will be no 2020 Pagani, Dolinsek, Montecillo Cabernet, Lorenzo’s Heritage Wine, and a few others), but it could have been much worse. For those who want to see the behind-the-scenes experience for our team, we also made a video about the early part of this process (with cameos from other industry friends), which you can find here.
Fires, Winds, Distance and Exposure
One of the hardest parts about the smoke question is that there are several variables to evaluate.
First, it has become clear that “new” smoke (aka smoke from a nearby fire, usually within five miles) is far more injurious and likely to cause a buildup of smoky character in a wine. This is because the volatile phenols contained in the smoke liberate quickly. Imagine you are standing over a grill: you are going to smell a lot more like smoke than if you are even on the other side of the deck. The converse of this is that “old” smoke, which has traveled a distance, is much less likely to convey smoke character on grapes. Thus, a vineyard that is close to a fire and has even a short exposure to new smoke could be far worse off than a vineyard ten, twenty, or hundreds of miles from a fire, even if exposed to a larger volume of old smoke. What we have seen in our testing is that areas like Lodi and Amador County, where smoke was blown inland but the fires were many miles away, are essentially unaffected.
Another major factor to keep in mind is wind patterns over the course of a fire event. When initial fires broke out near Dry Creek Valley, the winds, for the first few days, blew the smoke away from the growing area, which allowed us time to bring in several lots of Zinfandel from Teldeschi Ranch and all of Nervo Ranch in nearby Alexander Valley; those lots are completely fine. However, when those winds shifted and smoke blew into the valley from nearby fires, things got ugly. Fruit picked 7-10 days later was clearly smoke-affected, having 3-5x the number of markers for smoke issues.
Volatile Phenols and Bound Glycosides
There are two main ways that smoke can get into a wine.
The first is by direct contact with smoke, where the volatile compounds adhere to the surface of the fruit—essentially in the way that smoke adheres to a brisket or ribs when grilling. This is why we are so careful to test for volatile phenols such as 4-methylguaiacol, guaiacol, o-cresol, p-cresol, m-cresol, syringol, and methyl syringol—if these are elevated, it is a cause for immediate concern. For instance, a block of Zinfandel picked before smoke exposure had a total combined volatile phenol count of 7 ppb (parts per billion). Another block of fruit from the same vineyard, picked after smoke exposure, had a combined panel of 28 ppb, so essentially four times the pre-smoke-exposed level, which clearly indicates a potential issue.
There are a couple complications in evaluating volatile phenol numbers, though. To start, every variety has a certain amount of naturally occurring volatile phenols that is oftentimes part of its varietal character or signature. For instance, Syrah naturally has a lot of guaiacol in it, which is part of what gives the smoky, bacon-rind character we all love so much. Other varieties, including Petite Sirah (related to Syrah), Alicante Bouschet, and Peloursin and many more, also have varying degrees of natural volatile compounds that will show up. The other complicating factor is that oak, particularly new oak, introduces many of the same compounds as smoke. This makes sense, as barrels are composed of wood that is lightly pyrolyzed over a fire. Thus, it is important to establish baseline numbers for each individual variety and also send samples in for testing before racking to barrel.
The second way smoke can interfere with a wine is when the vines themselves begin respiring (essentially breathing) air that has smoke in it. The plant treats the smoke compounds as a toxin and will flush it out in the process of sugar loading into the fruit. In order to evaluate the extent to which this may have happened, we use a separate panel that measures bound glycosides. As you might imagine, the amount of smoke uptake varies based on variety, how active respiration is (late in the season or early in the season), canopy health, density of particulate matter, age of particulate matter, etc. One of the most important areas of further research will be determining which varieties might be more prone to this and if vineyard practices can help control smoke uptake (for instance, if irrigation would make it better or worse).
It should be noted that there is still no consensus on how bound glycosides actually affect sensory elements in a wine, but what we do know is that over time, due to acid hydrolysis, glycosides can turn into volatile phenols, which definitely do have a sensory impact. The nightmare scenario for a winery is a wine that is below threshold concerns for volatile phenols initially, but then become problematic due to a high bound glycoside number which turns into volatile phenols as the wine ages. However, there is disagreement on what rate bound glycosides might convert into volatile phenols–it is dependent on chemistry (acid hydrolysis, so theoretically higher-acid wines might convert at a faster rate), and I have seen people speculate on numbers ranging from 2% per year to 10% per year. Given these unknowns, we have run both volatile phenol and bound glycoside panels on all of our wines, in many cases multiple times to monitor change over elevage, to know where those numbers are at, and we have been conservative with any wines where we see higher bound glycoside numbers.
Determining baselines and when to release.
Of course, the only way of knowing if a wine is smoke-affected is by comparing it to previous wines from the same vineyard in years where no smoke was present, in order to evaluate numbers against some sort of baseline. As mentioned previously, grapes naturally contain some volatile phenols and bound glycosides, so determining what a “normal” number is from a given site or variety is critical for determining whether smoke effect is present.
We have decided that a wine is essentially “safe” when the 2020 wines have a total volatile phenol panel that is lower than or the same as finished wines of previous years, and when bound glycosides are the same or nearly the same as the finished wines (meaning we are not concerned about smoke issues coming up after the wine is bottled). For example, on Old Hill Ranch, the volatile phenol total for the 2018 vintage was 24 ppb, and the 2019 was 26 ppb ; the bound glycoside total was 15 ppb on both vintages. In 2020, the volatile phenol panel taken in May totaled 14 ppb and the bound glycoside total was 15 ppb. Since the totals are lower than or equal to the finished wine of a smoke-free year, we have total confidence in releasing it.
Of course, good ol’ fashioned tasting acumen is equally important, and it has been gratifying to see that our sensory analysis lines up closely with results we get back from the lab.
Despite all the challenges, the 2020 wines are very good to excellent and reflect the extraordinary work of the talented Bedrock team, who pushed onward with brilliance and humor under a consistently punishing set of circumstances, COVID fears, and too often a semi-apocalyptic crimson sun. As always, we only get to lead this life of learning and reward thanks to your ongoing support, and for that we are immensely grateful.
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Thanks Morgan. I appreciate the response!
I had your 2020 Sonoma and Monte Rosso Cabernets penciled into my not actually written down list of wines I wanted to go “deep” on this year. I don’t typically but more than six of a certain cuvée and have enjoyed the bottles of Sonoma County Cabernet so much the last year I am planning to buy more. A little affirmation to get over that stage fright is what I needed.
ETA, I listened to the podcast for this release and that got me wanting to buy it more!
Offer is up.