Broc Cellars - 'Love Rosé' - Rosé of Valdiguie - North Coast, CA - 2021

Tasting notes: Tart watermelon, bright acidity
VARIETIES: 97% Valdiguié | 2% Zinfandel | 1 % Trousseau
LOCATION: North Coast
VINEYARDS: Rosewood, Wirth Ranch + Arrowhead Mountain Vineyard
ALCOHOL: 11.5%
TOTAL PRODUCTION: 2500 cases
WINEMAKER’S NOTES:
We foot stomped all the fruit and left it on the skins for 12 hours. Then it was pressed into stainless steel tank where all three varieties fermented together for just over 14 days. The result is a 100% finished wine. This means it fermented until it went dry using only native yeasts and went through spontaneous malolactic fermentation. Each variety brings a unique quality to the wine - spice comes from the Zinfandel, acidity from the Valdiguié and texture from the Trousseau.
VITICULTURAL AREA :

The inspiration for our Love Wines comes from the desire 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. We love working with this grape. It plays so nicely with Zinfandel and Trousseau grown in California’s soil. The Valdiguié comes from Rosewood Vineyard located in Mendocino. From Wirth Ranch located in Solano County Green Valley we get some Valdiguié in addition to Trousseau. The Zinfandel is from Arrowhead Mountain Vineyard in Sonoma. All three vineyards are farmed organically.

The Broc Cellars story begins with a move from Nebraska to California. Chris Brockway grew up in Omaha and felt drawn to wine. Specifically spicy, brambly Zinfandels from California, and took a leap to move out West. He received an oenology degree from Fresno State and began making his first wine in 2002 – it was just one barrel. The following year he made three barrels, and by 2004 had 14 barrels of wine to call his own. Broc Cellars was born and had its first official release in 2006. At the time, the mentality surrounding California wines was “bigger is better”. Chris personally felt the wines to be too big, too much alcohol, too much everything. He set out to do something else. In 2008 he moved to his first winery space in Berkeley, which was originally known as Grape Leaf Cellars, located only one block away from where we are now. This is where Broc found its way.
In his first winemaking years in Berkeley, Chris sourced from only a handful of vineyards in California. Arrowhead Mountain Vineyard, an organically farmed Zinfandel vineyard in Sonoma, was one of the first places Chris purchased fruit from starting in 2006 and continues to make wine from this special vineyard today. Chris learned that picking before what was considered ripe in California at the time produced wines that he really enjoyed drinking. This was true for not only the Zinfandel from Arrowhead, but all the other vineyards he worked with. Picking before the grapes got too ripe led to fresher, lighter wines that were lower in alcohol - they showed the special character of the vineyard. Today, the Vine Starr Zinfandel is still recognized as one of the most fresh and balanced Zinfandels made from California.
In 2009, Chris made his first vintage of Carignan using carbonic maceration and it was also the first year he experimented with skin contact whites, making a Rousanne. Another wine that paved the way for Broc early on was the whole cluster Cabernet Franc, now known as KouKou. In 2010 Chris began working with Cabernet Franc from Happy Canyon in Santa Barbara and made it using whole cluster fermentation. The wines made in 2009 and 2010 were unlike most wines being made in California at the time and were building blocks for how Broc wines are made today.