Broc Cellars Happi Chenin 2020
Type: Red
Country: USA
Region: California, Mendocino, Sonoma and Paso Robles
Grape Variety: 85% Chenin Blanc, 8% Chardonnay, 7% Picpoul
Alcohol Percentage: 12%
Viticulture: Natural Wine | Organic Farming
Terroir: Rosewood Vineyard is located in the Talmage Bench of Mendocino. It consists of deep Red Vine soils with sedimentary rock and moderate slope reddish-brown sandy clay loam. The Chenin Blanc vines are 40 years old and dry farmed. Michael Mara vines grow in rocky soil in Sonoma. Luna Matta Vineyard has calcareous bedrock soil. All vineyards are Certified Organic.
Ageing: The Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay and Picpoul grapes were directly pressed whole cluster into neutral French oak barrels where the juice fermented and aged for 11 months. The barrels were topped monthly with no stirring of the lees. This wine is unfiltered to showcase the natural texture.
Color: Light yellow
Nose: Hints of honeysuckle, pear and apples on a gentle nose
Palate: Bright with slight acidity over notes of pineapples, lemons and melons
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
