Photos of the Bedrock and Dirty & Rowdy Evangelho Vineyard 2016 harvest:
Additional photos from the 2016 Evangelho Vineyard harvest:
Notice how sandy the soil is…
Drew, if you haven’t checked out the Precedent Evangelho Vineyard Zinfandel, give it a try. It’s a field blend but predominantly Zin - according to the Precedent website, there’s also some Carignane, Mataro, Palomino, Muscat, Chasselas, and other varieties. Precedent is the label of Thomas Fogarty winemaker Nathan Kandler, who’s worked with the Evangelho fruit for a number of years.
Ken, ironically enough, I had a bottle of the 2012 Precedent 2012 Evangelho Vineyard Zinfandel, but gifted it to a friend on a trip to Austin, Texas, a few months back. I do occasionally regret having done so… 
I see that Cameron Hughes sells a “Field Blend” (currently the Lot 522: Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Syrah; $13/btl, on sale for $9.10/btl) sourced completely from “vineyards in Contra Costa, each with an average vine age over 70 and 80 years old, with many well over 100”.
Has anyone tried this wine, or any other interesting CoCo wines, lately?
Yep, I’ve had this multiple times and I think I even commented on it somewhere here at one point. It’s a really, really solid wine, and for $9.99 at Costco, literally one of my favorite QPR’s ever. It’s a bigger wine that I feel will do well with some age on it, as I’ve actually enjoyed it more on days 2 and 3.
I think I’ve purchased around a case and a half so and will probably be getting more. For me, a no brainer to stockpile.
Drinking this again tonight, and it’s awesome. Ideal Sunday night wine when it’s a little chilly outside (for Phoenix) and I’m grilling.
Highly, highly recommended…especially at the $9 price point.
I received an email offer from Dropout Wines the other day. The wines included a Castanho Vineyard Mourvedre from the Contra Costa area (supposedly West of Antioch).
I have only seen one other winery offer a red from this vineyard - Rosenblum. The site was planted in the past two or three decades, so it’s not an ancient agricultural location.
Has anyone else heard of the Castanho Vineyard?
Most excellent, Ken!!!
As Matt Cline states in the article, the hard rains will aid the vines for months, prepping them for a healthy start to the 2017 vintage.
Hey Drew,
2015 was the first year we (Dropout Wines) worked with Castanho. The Mourvèdre we get was planted in 1981 in sandy soil. Walking the vineyard is like walking the beach. The vineyard is in Oakley near the corner or Brownstone road and Anderson Lane. Mark Herold gets some Mourvèdre from this vineyard, and I believe the rest goes to Bedrock. We are very happy with the wine and excited to be able to work with such an amazing site.
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Thanks for the information, Jon!
I am always excited to see new Mourvedre wines - especially those from Contra Costa!!! Best wishes to you in your endeavors!
I’ve been sampling the '14 Bedrock Evangelho over the last two days. As a matter of context, I’ve been drinking CC zins my entire wine drinking life-meaning roughly 40 years. This wine possesses fantastic color and a very bright attractive, bordering on exemplary nose. Unfortunately, things drop off precipitously after those two characteristics. The mid-palate borders on hollow and the fruit is hard to detect under two successive walls of acidity and tannin. The tannins are fine-grained, but way too dominant over the fruit. In some ways this wine is similar to a very young Barolo but here is where experience and context come into play with wine; if I know the producer and track record of a specific Barolo with similar profiles of obtrusive acidity and tannin I am more inclined to say it just needs time. With CC zin, I have never seen/observed this much acidity and tannin recede in proportion to the fruit. Unfortunate effort here IMHO.
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Hey Drew, don’t know whether you’ve seen this Contra Costa map on page 18 of this book before, from 1903 (scroll up a little to see the map):
Contra Costa County - partial
There are a number of vineyards and wineries shown. This is only part of the map, and this portion doesn’t show the eastern part of the county near Oakley. It looks like the full map is on newspapers.com, but you have to pay to access it (although there’s a free 7-day trial subscription):
Contra Costa County map from Oakland Tribune, Nov. 4, 1903
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Here’s an image of the map in that book:
[resizeableimage=717,1024]https://books.google.com/books/content?id=sItQBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA18&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&ots=FEpVz1wEoO&sig=ACfU3U0NCjbQoSyVReO26nBc5gz_PUO23A&w=1280[/resizeableimage]
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Whoa!! Thanks, Ken!
I don’t know how I missed your post. I have been searching for maps of the Antioch/Oakley region. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any like this!
From the Once and Future Email:
“Oakley Road Mataro
Contra Costa
Mataro is the name Mourvedre, the famous grape of Bandol, is known by in California. The Mataro grape has been planted in California since the 1870’s, mostly as an adjunct in blends were Zinfandel dominated. Though scarce, there are a few places where Mataro is an exceptional standalone grape. One of those places is Oakley. In the eastern rain shadow of Mount Diablo near the San Joaquin river, vines on the own roots planted to sand dune like soils in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s still produce some of the most interesting and highly regarded Mataro in California. The soils are so sandy that early growers in this region were disparaged as Sand-Lappers. Little did those wags know that the delta sands with their Phylloxera inhibiting properties would be the key to the survival of these amazing 100 plus year old, own rooted, unirrigated vines.
The micro climate of Oakley allows grapes to ripen early. It is not so much that it is hot during the growing months, the average temperature is about 74 degrees with the nights being in the mid 50’s and the days being in the 90’s during the month of July and August, it is that the sandy soils warm begins in the year than most other areas in California and vine growth starts sooner. As the season progresses the grapes continue to ripen consistently, in spite of the cooling maritime winds from the Carquinez straits, due to the reflected sun from the Antioch sandy soils. These are the kinds of conditions that are perfect for a slow ripening grape like Mataro.
The resulting wines can be, in a word, graceful. The smoky, soft cherry, plum flavors are well developed and full, the acid perfectly balanced and the tannins soft and round. The combination of own roots , old vines, deep sandy soils and cooling afternoon breezes seems to encourage gentle, suave wines. While some winemakers like to make big powerful dark wines from these grapes though I believe the wines are much more enjoyable, interesting, complex and finer when picked earlier.
These Oakley Road vines may not be around much longer. This part of Contra Costa (CoCo for short) is changing rapidly. It has been an industrial back water for a long time. High tension electrical lines, a PG&E power plant, motels that rent by the hour stand in contrast to an inordinate number of churches, and an increasing number of fast food restaurants populate a disjointed human landscape. There is increasing urbanization as roads are widened and BART pushes east. A number of these vineyards are for sale with inflated land prices having been designated as commercial land, land costs that are more compatible with strip malls than farming. For now, the vines remain in the ground producing viticultural treasure. For now, we continue to make lovely wine and cherish our moment.
2015 Oakley Road Mataro, Contra Costa County - $35”
Photo of the pruned Carignan vines in the Evangelho Vineyard (posted to Facebook by Morgan Twain-Peterson of Bedrock):
