I can usually hold myself to a 12 bottle limit, but when Ode to Lulu is involved, that just doesn’t work.
Here is the information from the Bedrock 2019 Spring Release email:
Bedrock Wine Company website:
https://bedrockwineco.com
"Allocations are guaranteed until Sunday, February 24th at 11:59 pm PT. If you are not allocated a wine or would like more than allocated, please use the ‘Wish List’ column to indicate what you would like.
"…There is $35 flat-rate ground shipping on orders of 6 bottles or more. All orders will ship March 11th, weather permitting. If not, we will hold orders until the weather is safe to ship. If you have any specific instructions, please put them in the order notes during checkout or email Chris@bedrockwineco.com.
"The Spring Release pick up days will be Saturday, March 9th and Saturday, March 16th from 12-5 pm at 19320 Orange Ave in Sonoma, CA. If you have previous orders you wish to pick up, please email Chris@bedrockwineco.com.
"2019 Spring Release Wines:
"2018 Ode to Lulu Rosé, California
"Composed of 55% old vine Mataro and 45% old vine Grenache, Ode to Lulu is our love letter to the Bandol rosé we love so much. The Mataro is sourced from the sandy soils and own-rooted vines of Oakley along with a dash of 1920s-planted fruit from the famed Pagani Ranch. The deliciously feral and wild Mataro element is enlivened by Grenache planted in the 1880s at Gibson Ranch in Mendocino’s McDowell Valley. From a color perspective, this is the palest rendition of this wine we have made in a while, something that belies its richness and density. The 2018 rendition might be my favorite of the 11 vintages we have made. $19
"2018 Sonoma Valley Sauvignon Blanc
"Perhaps our finest rendition of this bottling to date. This Sauvignon Blanc comes almost exclusively from the steep Uboldi Vineyard on the southern edge of Kenwood— a site where we find the northern exposure and rocky soils make for gloriously perfumed and racy Sauvignon Blanc. In addition, there is a single barrel of Judge Vineyard from Bennett Valley included in the blend. When making this wine we feel that texture is as important as the hallmark aromatics of Musque clone SB. To this end, nearly half of this wine was barrel fermented in a combination of used Austrian and French barrels of various sizes along with a small percentage of new oak. Flavors of Crenshaw melon, yuzu and crunchy fruit dominate. Yum! $22
"2017 Chuy Chardonnay, Moon Mountain District
"Our second and unfortunately, final year of making wine from this iconic vineyard planted by Chuy Ordaz in the early 1970s as the vineyard was leased to another winery. Dry-farmed at nearly 1000’ above the floor of Sonoma Valley, Chuy Vineyard is about as old school (in a good way) as it gets. Planted on the marquee red soils of the Moon Mountain District (the same as Monte Rosso and much of Hanzell), the vineyard produces wines of richness balanced by crystalline acidity. This was barrel fermented, mainly in older French Oak along with a couple delicately toasted Stockinger barrels from Austria. Of the four Chardonnays we have made in the history of Bedrock, this is the best— finally capturing some of the minerally character of white Burg while retaining its thumbprint of mountain fruit. $35
"2017 Lorenzo’s Heritage Wine, Dry Creek Valley
"Lorenzo’s Heritage Wine comes from the beautifully drained, gravelly clay soils of the western bench of Dry Creek Valley—some of the best soils for producing Zinfandel, Carignan and Petite Sirah in the state. Farmed by John Teldeschi, my family has worked with these ancient blocks of fruit since 1982.
"A wine we have made since the inaugural vintage of Bedrock in 2007, Lorenzo’s has shown itself to be an ageworthy wine— sometimes a bit burly and roguish in its youth, it unfolds into something beautiful after 5-6 years in bottle (the 2008, 2009 and 2012 are drinking beautifully right now). The 2017 is roughly 46% Zinfandel, 35% Petite Sirah and 14% Carignan with the remaining amounts made up of Alicante Bouschet, Cinsault, Peloursin and a few vines of Vaccarese. $39
"2017 Nervo Ranch Heritage Wine, Geyserville
"Nervo Ranch lies just a few miles away from Teldeschi Vineyard, but it feels like a completely different world. Planted in 1896 on the eastern side of the hills that separate Dry Creek from Alexander Valley, the vineyard is planted on steep slopes of decomposed shale, a rare soil type for Sonoma County.
"Our earlier iterations of Nervo have been on the rugged and ageworthy side— peppery but firm and perhaps not super giving in their youth. After we took over the lease on the vineyard in 2015, we completely changed the farming, moving to minimal till practices, planting lots of cover crops and focusing on everything we could do to improve soil organic matter. By doing so we have seen soil organic matter go from essentially zero to almost 3%, and in the process we have seen the wines begin to soften a little bit and ingratiate themselves in their youth. This still has the trademark pepper and dark fruits of the Geyserville but is a little splashier than earlier bottlings. Predominately Zinfandel, this also has a fair percentage of Negrette, Petite Sirah, Alicante, Grenache, Grand Noir, Trousseau Noir and others field-blended into it. $39
"2017 Montecillo Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, Moon Mountain District
"From vines planted in the 1960s at 2000’ elevation at the top of Nun’s Canyon on the northern edge of the Moon Mountain District AVA, this is fast becoming one of the best-known sites for Cabernet in California. We feel very fortunate to share this incredible block with the likes of Turley, Arnot Roberts, DuMOL and others. The 2017 iteration of this wine is the most immediately generous and open of the vintages we have made. Classic black currant, anise and pepper are front and center here with classic mountain structure holding it all together. Though this is certainly as candidate for cellaring, it could also be enjoyed with a good decanting early in its life to enjoy it in its ‘baby-fat’ stage. $50
"2017 Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon
"What!? Yeah, we are surprised we are making this wine as well and we are pretty happy about it. Though 2017 was a low-volume vintage overall, we were able to get a few extra tons of Montecillo Cabernet that we were able to blend with fruit from another couple sites. The resulting wine is a lovely example of mountain Cabernet meeting the fleshier stuff from the valley floor—we think this wine absolutely slays for the price. A wine of happy circumstance in 2017, we do hope we can continue to make this in the future as a companion to our Old Vine Zinfandel and California Syrah. Since we have no idea how this is going to sell we have minmized allocations, please use the wish-list function while ordering and we will do our best to get everyone the wne. $27
"2017 Schmeidt Road Zinfandel, Lodi
"Sourced from two adjacent vineyards planted on their own roots in 1915 in East Lodi, this is one of the softer and more elegant wines in the Bedrock stable. The majority of the wine comes from our Katushas’ Vineyard, a vineyard we purchased in 2014 after being blown away by the quality of the neighboring Kirschenmann Vineyard. Kirschenmann still makes up a good chunk of the wine as well. Nearly 98% Zinfandel, with a smidge of interplanted Carignan, this wine is not what most people would call ‘typical’ Lodi Zin. Rather, the sandy soils and exposure to the close by Mokelumne River makes for a wine of perfume and elegance. This will be nice on the early side with decanting but should age nicely for a decade. $31
"2017 Under the Mountain Heritage Wine, Santa Clara County
"This amazing survivor vineyard is indeed ‘under the mountain’, or more accurately right under the Santa Cruz Mountains. Located in the hills west of Morgan Hill and just north of Hecker Pass, the vineyard lies in a region once heavily planted to vines. Most of the original plantings in the area have given way to housing, shopping malls and the other needs of the sprawling south Bay Area, which makes this vineyard, nestled in the hills, so unique. Farmed by the Gregory family, the vineyard is planted predominately to Zinfandel and Carignan, though some Petite Sirah, Muscat and others exist on the site as well. The small amount of wine we are able to make off the site is defined by beautiful mountain acidity, fresh fruit and aromatics that pop out of the glass. $39
"2016 Sky Vineyard Syrah, Mount Veeder
"Though one of my favorite wines from 2016, we have held off releasing this for a bit because it is straight up gnar. In many ways the essence of mountain Syrah, this has loads of dark fruit, pepper, violets, bacon—essentially all the things I love so much about the grape. From dry-farmed vines planted at the very top of Mt. Veeder, this wine will take some time to unwind. That might be a good thing because after fire ripped through this property in 2017, we only will have a couple vintages from this stunning and singular site to enjoy. I am putting a lot of this in my cellar. $45
"2016 Weill A Way Vineyard Syrah, Sonoma Valley
"From the steep slopes of Weill a Way Vineyard on the western slopes of Sonoma Valley, this wine is the essence of Syrah. Cofermented with a small amount of Viognier, the wine has showy aromatics of pig fat and flowers (my current preferred band name) and pretty but dense fruit. Though this was the site we made the ‘exposition’ wines from back in 2011-2013, this wine is made more like ‘traditional’ Bedrock Syrah in that it saw a fair amount of whole-cluster inclusion and less new oak (about 20% here). This will age well, and decanter time for near-term drinking is highly recommended. $48
"2016 Beduccini Red Wine, Sonoma Valley
“We have made a lot of crazy wines, but this one has to be close to the nuttiest. In 2016 we were only able to pick about 400 pounds of fruit of the tiny 1906 plantings of Zinfandel at Puccini Vineyard. On the same day we harvested the first fruit off of our library variety block at Bedrock Vineyard, a pick that netted us another few hundred pounds of mixed Grenache, Syrah, Peloursin, Petite Sirah, Negrette, Valdigue, Persan, Mollard, Black Muscat, Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Tempranillo. Since neither lot was big enough to really ferment on its own, we decided to throw any sense of winemaking propriety to the wind and throw everything together, 100% whole cluster, into a one-ton open top Stockinger tank. I had no expectation the wine would be good, but in fact it yielded a barrel’s worth of aromatically gorgeous, richly structured wine that was too interesting not to bottle on its own. There are only about 600 bottles of this wine. $39”
Bedrock Wine Company 2019 Spring Release Newsletter
“‘There are no happy endings.
Endings are the saddest part,
So just give me a happy middle
And a very happy start.’
― Shel Silverstein
"As those who have followed us for a while know, we spend a huge amount of time farming and rehabilitating old vineyards in Northern California. We spend lots of time thinking about how to renew soil health and better improve quality and quantity from vines that often times date to the presidencies of Grover Cleveland and William McKinley. This year we are taking on a challenge that is in many ways foreign to us—wholesale replanting of one of the sweetest pieces of dirt at Bedrock Vineyard.
*It seems a bit hard to believe, but there are still 11 acres of vineyard planted on AXR-1 at Bedrock Vineyard (a rootstock long known to succumb to phylloxera). Though cropping on the existing Cabernet vines has been miniscule, the winery taking the fruit loved it so much that we were reticent to pull it out. However, as we have seen farming costs climb, it has become abundantly clear that we need to think about a new future for this block of ground. This is both exciting and a bit terrifying, as the decisions we make over the next few years will be ones we need to live with for decades moving forward. What varieties do we plant? What rootstocks do we use? Spacing? Trellised or head-trained? How do we refresh soils that have been farmed for 150 years?
"We thought it would be interesting to put down a few thoughts here as we go into the process, as we are trying to think as broadly as possible before getting bogged down into the realities of vineyard development. We will start removing vines this April which will start the rather complex, multi-year process.
Rootstocks
"This is one of the most critical decisions, as the rootstock needs to fit the variety that is grafted onto it, the soil types, and the trellising system it will be used with. For instance, in the rocky soils of Bedrock, we would not necessarily want to use a low vigor rootstock on a low vigor variety unless we were spacing vines extremely tightly and knew we were planning on irrigating heavily (a la many modish plantings in California these days). Also, at a vineyard that has been planted to grapes for so long, there are certain soil pathogens, such as fan-leaf virus vectoring nematodes, that we need to be cognizant of as rootstocks have varying levels of antipathy to these little soil buggers (that is the scientific term for them, I swear).
Trellising
"We have a deep love for traditional, head-trained vines, but the reality is that it is not an ideal system for certain varieties. For instance, varieties that have higher levels of pyrazine (bell pepper character) such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc, Merlot, and Sauvignon Blanc tend to do better on a wire system that allows sunlight penetration into the canopy. However, we also need to balance this with our feelings that many modern vineyards have gone too far in manipulating varietal character via aggressive spacing and trellising to match a desired wine style. While head-training, or gobelet, is traditional for the gamut of Mediterranean varieties historically found in the California’s oldest vineyards, there is a reason why other systems of training are used across the world for varieties that are farther afield from the azure waters of the mare nostrum.
Spacing
"This is something that might not get thought enough about. First, a practical reality: one needs vines to be spaced widely enough to get a tractor through. Second, and more importantly, spacing decides how much water and nutrition is available to the vine on a given soil type. Traditionally, dry-farmed vineyards in California are spaced on a square 10x10 or 8x8, which means 64-100 square feet of soil per vine and only 420-681 vines per acre. Areas of the world where much tighter spacing is used, such as Burgundy or Bordeaux where 2400-2800 vines per acre are planted, benefit from many mid-season irrigations by mother nature (I always like to remind myself that 1’ of rain equals 27,154 gallons of rain per acre). In the arid and often water-starved summers of California, it is critical that we think of which spacing allows for the best and most sustainable use of resources.
Block Size
"11 acres is a really large block for a small winery, considering it once yielded over 40 tons of fruit. For the purposes of an operation like ours, breaking this down into smaller blocks that better match ideal fermenter sizes is important. If we expect yields to average around 2.5-3 tons per acre, it is best to break things down into one- to three-ton blocks. This also allows for a great diversification of what we can plant.
Varieties
"This is the most enjoyable decision to think about, but also the hardest. How do we balance what we know works historically well on the site with the more fun stuff we want to plant? What will sell well in case we mess this whole winery thing up and need to be selling the fruit at some point down the line? How do we balance traditional California with what we think could work well here? The good news is that with 11 acres to work with, we can strike a balance between the whacky and historically defined. Some thoughts:
Known
3 acres of California clone Cabernet Sauvignon (Sees, Martha’s, etc.), spaced widely on a modified California sprawl system along with some Franc and Petit Verdot.
3 acres of head-trained, widely spaced field-blended Zinfandel similar to the 1888 plantings.
1 acre of head-trained, field-blended Grenache, as this was historically planted on the ranch.
1 acre of Syrah—though not considered “cool climate,” Bedrock’s heat summation is closer to Guerneville than you might think.
Do-wacka-do varieties and thoughts (to quote Roger Miller)
1 acre of field-blended Portuguese varieties. I love the aromatic and deeply colored Touriga Nacional and adore that it is historically field blended in the Douro with other varieties such as Touriga Francesa, Tinta Borraca, Tinta Cão, and Tinta Roriz (Tempranillo). Likely head trained, though we might have to travel to Portugal to get this right!
1 acre of Mencia, a variety that smells like Syrah and Cabernet Franc had a love child. Traditionally planted on the granitic soils of Bierzo and Ribeira Sacra.
1 acre of Vermentino—my favorite Mediterranean white variety for its aromatics and texture.
It is not available in California yet but I would love to plant the Corsica variety Sciaccarello for all of its warm-climate but delicate and perfumed character. Same for Nerello Mascalese from Etna.
Conclusion
"This is gonna be fun! We will continue to report on the process in newsletters moving forward, though I am sure there will be many updates on our respective Instagram accounts if you want closer to real-time progress reports.
"Best,
Morgan and Chris
BEDROCK WINE CO.
SONOMA, CA 95476
707-343-1478
CHRIS@BEDROCKWINECO.COM "
Bedrock Wine Company website:
https://bedrockwineco.com
In for a mixed case and a half. Looking forward to trying Under The Mountain Heritage which I haven’t had before. Anyone who has had the 2016 who can comment on what it’s like in comparison to some of the other Bedrock heritage wines (if you can compare)?
Also hoping for some wish list Beduccini. That looks too interesting to pass up!
The Under the Mountain is unique onto itself. Different than any of the other field blends, but more approachable than say the Lorenzo’s or the Bedrock which I think usually benefit from cellaring. More medium/big, would be a good way to describe it. Great floral nose from what I remember. Christmas spices. Typical Bedrock style - all in balance, well made.
I was curious about this too. thanks for the feedback. sounds delicious!
- I love updates like this. so cool to see the thought process.
- in for nerello mascalese!
I am blown away by the bravery that MTP & Co. consistently exhibit in their vineyard work!
It’s not brave when you can execute and he usually does. Some of his latest creations Pato and Tinto York Creek for example, are some of my favorites.
In for a case if I get a few wish-listed bottles. Really looking forward to this one.
This is going to be a longgg week… waiting for the leftovers ![[whistle.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/87d24eb81ec6dc01d84f3d6c19fa9a357e90218e.gif "whistle"){kind=small}
Right there with you.
Patience grasshopper.
Super excited for our tasting appointment this Saturday, hoping they’ll have some of the Spring Release wines available.
^ You can call the Bedrock tasting room and they’ll tell you what they’re pouring. If you have a particular interest they may also be able to help you with that.
Was pretty regimented.
3 x Ode To Lulu
2 x Sky
2 x Weill a Way
1 x Chuy Chard
1 x Moon Mountain Cab
1 x Beduccini (Wish list)
Just about choked when I saw my 60 bottle allocation of Lulu!
Awesome description, thx!
Well thanks for leaving some on the table for the rest of us haha
My allocation was very generous this year. I wish I could have bought it all…Enjoy my scraps!
I got a mixed 6-pack, which could have easily turned into a case. My wife and I throw a rose party every April/May, so I am looking forward to opening the Ode to Lulu!