Broc Cellars Love Sparkling Chenin Pet Nat 2021
Type: Sparkling
Country: USA
Region: California, Paso Robles and Santa Maria Valley
Grape Variety: 87% Chenin Blanc, 13% Muscat
Alcohol Percentage: 11%
Viticulture: Natural Wine | Organic Farming
Terroir: Shell Creek Vineyard is located 20 miles from the town of Paso Robles. It has sandy topsoil with calcareous fossilized seashells underneath. The vineyard was planted in 1972 by the Stinton Family (who has owned the property since the late 1800s). The Chenin Blanc is farmed without the use of pesticides, herbicides or synthetic fertilizers. The vineyard is in the process of getting organic certification and should be complete this year. North Canyon Vineyard, located in Santa Maria Valley, is new for Broc. They grow Muscat, which was what Broc wanted to add to the Love Sparkling this year for the aromatics. The vineyard is practising organic viticulture
Ageing: Broc picked early in the morning and left the juice on the skins until the afternoon when it was pressed into stainless steel tank. They fermented the wine until dry, then added Chardonnay must to sweeten the wine and then bottled the juice. As it warmed up, fermentation occurred again in the bottle, providing the gorgeous bubbles. The wine was disgorged by hand with no dosage
Color: Pale gold
Nose: Hints of lemon and pineapple
Palate: Crisp green apple, lime zest & lemon on the palate
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
