Broc Cellars Corteza Grenache Rose 2021
Type: Rose
Country: USA
Region: California, Contra Costa County
Grape Variety: 95% Grenache, 5% White Zinfandel
Alcohol Percentage: 12%
Viticulture: Natural Wine | Organic Farming
Terroir: Corteza Vineyard is located in Contra Costa Country in the historic town of Knightsen. The Grenache was planted in 1991 and the soil consists of clay loam. Artemio Cortez purchased the vineyard in 2015. He has a young family of five so it is important for him to farm the vineyard with natural nutrients, completely free of chemicals – using only organic practices.
Ageing: This is Broc’s first vintage working with fruit grown in Contra Costa County. The Grenache Noir grapes were the first red grapes brought in for their 2021 harvest, on August 13th. Left whole-cluster for carbonic maceration to occur for one week, they then pressed to stainless steel to ferment for 12 days. The wine was aged in neutral French oak barrel for 6 months. Bottled unfiltered
Color: Light red / pink
Nose: Hints of white strawberries
Palate: Light bodied with notes of guava and white peach
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
