Broc Cellars Love Rose 2020
Type: Rose
Country: USA
Region: California, North Coast
Grape Variety: 85% Valdiguié, 14% Zinfandel, 1% Trousseau
Alcohol Percentage: 11%
Viticulture: Natural Wine | Organic Farming
Terroir: The inspiration for the Love Wines come from wanting to keep as many older vine plantings and forgotten vineyards of California alive. Valdiguié, a grape formerly known as Napa Gamay, has so much history in Northern California and plays so nicely with Zinfandel and Trousseau grown in California’s soil. Ricetti and Rosewood Vineyards are located in Mendocino County. Wirth Vineyard grows in Solano County Green Valley – which is located just east of Napa Valley.
Ageing: The fruit was foot stomped, left on the skins for 12 hours and pressed into stainless steel tank where all three varieties fermented together just over 18-21 days. The spice comes from the Zinfandel, acidity from the Valdiguié and texture from the Trousseau. This is a 100% finished wine, meaning it fermented until it went dry using only native yeasts and went through spontaneous malolactic fermentation. This wine is unfiltered and may contain some sediment.
Color: Lovely pink
Nose: Beautiful fresh berries and hints of rose petals
Palate: On the palate, the berries give an upfront juiciness that stays light and dry, followed by a crisp finish with just a soft touch of acidity. Pair with fresh goat cheeses and strawberries.
About the Winery:
After growing up in Nebraska and working in Seattle, Chris Brockway arrived in California to study winemaking. Following a textbook education at UC Davis and Fresno State, Chris’s experience of drinking and enjoying more low-intervention wines persuaded him to take a somewhat different path to most of his classmates. In 2002, he began working at an urban winery in Oakland, before leaving in 2006 to set up his own label from a small industrial unit in Berkeley. Today he runs his operation from a bigger premise around the corner, but the focus remains producing wines from organic or biodynamic fruit in a decidedly hands-off fashion – natural ferments and no additions.
Chris is an open-minded and innovative winemaker and his winery reflects this, packed from floor to ceiling with the innumerable projects that he has on the go at any one time. Terracotta fermentation vessels (based loosely on amphorae) full of Nero d’Avola vie for space with sealed tanks of Carignan going through carbonic maceration and a lineup of majestic open-top wood fermenters.
At Broc Cellars, all of their wines are made using spontaneous fermentation, a process that means they only use native yeasts and bacteria that exist on the grapes in order to make wine. They don’t add anything – this includes nutrients, yeast, bacteria, enzymes, tannins or other popular fermentation agents. Sulphur is a naturally occurring element in all wine, the amount found can vary. They add little to no S02, depending on the wine and style. The grapes that they work with are grown without using synthetic pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, or fertilizers.
“Our goal in making wine is to bring out the natural expression of the grape. We decide on a wine by wine basis how we want to do that. We have more freedom now to make the choice not to add Sulphur. There is a bigger market for us to go in the direction we want to go. To counter that we are doing more to ensure our vineyards are using the farming practices we support. We’re also committed to detailing exactly what decisions we make during the course of our winemaking process.” – Chris Brockway
