There is a lot going on in the world – that’s putting it quite mildly. Yet as I (still Emily) write this, I can’t help but think about all the little joys we’ve experienced this year. Our supplemental release last spring gave us an extra month of talking to and emailing with our awesome mailing list members. Extra time at home meant more time watching our one-year-old learn to walk, then run almost immediately thereafter. (While he can’t yet do his own barrel-downs at the winery, he is getting pretty good at pouring grape juice from his cup into a bucket).
If we could sum up 2020 in a word for us, it would be gratitude. Gratitude for our friends and family as we’ve adjusted to air-hugs and Zoom calls. Gratitude to our coworkers for working together to keep everyone safe. Gratitude for public health officials and those working essential services to keep us fed and healthy. And gratitude for those who support Desire Lines—from the bottom of our hearts, thank you.
That brings us to the wines in this release – four very unique and lovely bottlings we’re so excited for you to try. In lieu of an overarching winemaking deep dive, we let Cody go nuts with notes on each wine individually. Please enjoy reading and/or lovingly teasing Cody for his nerdiness.
“Desire Lines is one of my most exciting discoveries this year. Cody Rasmussen is the Assistant Winemaker at Bedrock. He makes these wines with his wife, Emily, sourcing fruit from a pretty enviable collection of vineyards. The wines, highly expressive of both variety and place, are well worth checking out.”
– ANTONIO GALLONI, APRIL 2020
2019 COLE RANCH RIESLING, MENDOCINO COUNTY
The inclusion of Cole Ranch Riesling in our fall release is an unusual one, and one that we’re really excited about for the future. (Spoiler alert: we have another old-vine Riesling site from Mendocino County coming down the pipeline that looks likely to join the regular cast, and it seems better suited for the spring release and an extra six months in bottle.) Meanwhile, the exuberant Cole Ranch drinks so well in its youth, and its tropical flavors and richness just work with fall flavors on the table.
Though making California Riesling might initially seem like an odd labor of love for us given the paucity of older plantings left in the ground, the variety has a storied history in the Golden State. Riesling first arrived in the United States with pioneering European immigrants in the mid-19th Century. The first plantings were likely in Sonoma in 1857, courtesy of Agoston Haraszthy, followed shortly thereafter by Emil Dresser also in Sonoma, who imported cuttings from his home in Geisenheim. At about the same time, Francis Stock planted Riesling in San Jose, followed by Charles LeFranc in 1862 in Santa Clara County. Riesling was ascendant in the 1950s and 1960s, and by the height of the boom in 1983 Riesling was the fifth-most planted white wine grape variety in California, behind only French Colombard, Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc. As recounted by the University of California Book of California Wine, edited by Muscatine, Amerine, and Thompson (1984):
The new era of White Riesling dawned with the vintage of 1968, when Lee Stewart produced one with many of the charms of a good German wine at his old Souverain Cellars in the Napa Valley. It had the haunting floral scents and berry-tart juiciness that had been missing earlier in California. Stewart picked a bit earlier than his neighbors, fermented cool, and retained a shade less than 1 percent residual sugar in the finished wine, which he bottled soon after the harvest. Though oak flavors were no part of the design, the wine did spend time in large oak casks to soften it. Such is still the outline of the most foodworthy of California White Rieslings.
The next chapter came in 1972 and 1973, when Wente Bros. and Freemark Abbey produced markedly botrytized wines from White Riesling. Concentrated in flavor, and with residual sugar levels equaling German Auslesen and Beerenauslesen respectively, these wines made deep impressions on critics and other winemakers alike. Critical clamor combined with technical challenge to pull most of the major producers into the hunt. By 1978 at least four wineries had reached and surpassed the maximum sugar levels of Trockenbeerenauslesen. No fewer than a dozen regularly produced wines with botrytis-aided sweetness equivalent to Auslesen and Beerenauslesen…
Impressive as this chase was, and is, the degree to which it removed the focus from foodworthy wine to sideshow spectacle sealed not White Riesling’s doom, but its decline. Many producers who could not find botrytised grapes settled for overripe ones, resulting in a good many wines of high alcohols and residual sugars between 2.5 and 4 percent – a balance suited to neither dinner nor desert. If we hear the drinking public correctly, it is these in particular that have caused casual wine buyers to look elsewhere. Meanwhile, the wine has become too good to be ignored for much longer. As the experimental era ends and mature styles develop, a helpful nomenclature for labels is sure to follow. With that a broad audience should join us diehards who have remained loyal.
Comically, almost forty years later we’re still fighting the same battles for Riesling. Nomenclature, in particular, remains a challenge – is a dry-tasting Riesling a “dry” Riesling, or is that term reserved for wines that ferment fully dry? And, if so, how dry is dry? Very few wines ferment truly dry – i.e. to 0.0 grams per liter residual sugar (RS). Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a miraculous creature, equipped with 18 hexose transporters with differing levels of affinity for glucose-fructose that are selectively degraded over the course of fermentation to maximize yeast viability, but even so, those last few grams of RS can be difficult to metabolize before the yeast cells die of ethanol toxicity and increasingly adverse conditions.* Is a barrel whose fermentation arrests with three grams per liter RS less “true” than a barrel from the same press fraction that ferments all the way to one gram? We think not. And, is there an innate intelligence to some sites that help to determine yeast viability and wine style? We think so.
Most of our barrels of Riesling have historically finished between two and nine grams per liter residual sugar; the level of the finished wine is determined by which barrels we choose to include in the blend, which varies in accordance with the character of the vintage.
The way we best describe our Rieslings is by borrowing a German term – Grosses Gewächs – which indicates both a set of stylistic parameters and a superlative vineyard source. German “GG” Rieslings are necessarily trocken (dry), containing no more than nine grams per liter RS so long as the titratable acidity is no more than two grams per liter less than the RS value. Confusing, yes, but also a great way to qualify the effect of acidity on the perception of sweetness.
The purpose of residual sugar in Riesling is to bring balance to the wine. Cole Ranch is an extraordinarily acidic site with high levels of dry extract, so a little sugar goes a long way in creating harmony on the palate. Additionally, sugar changes the aromatic character of the wine—wines that seem dull and closed when fermented dry become vibrant and perfumed when blended with a touch of sweetness. It’s the most mind-bending trick we perform in the winery every year, when we blend the Riesling barrels in search of intensity, finesse, and balance.
Our 2019 Cole Ranch Riesling is especially lush and exotic, with eight grams per liter RS balanced by seven grams per liter titratable acidity and a 3.1 pH. The wine most closely resembles our 2016 Cole Ranch Riesling, which has aged beautifully, and reminds me of the first bite of the last peach of summer at farmer’s market – juicy and decadent, richness balanced by a snap of acidity and a hint of bitterness from the peach skin.
2019 EXPERIMENTAL SERIES NO. 4 – FRED RIDES AGAIN MOURVÈDRE, CONTRA COSTA COUNTY
The return of a tightly-allocated fan favorite from last year – a Mourvèdre based on Fred’s Home Block (among the oldest Mourvèdre vines that I know of in the state and previously the backbone of Randall Graham’s Le Cigare Volant) with the award for Best Supporting Actor going to none other than Evangelho Vineyard, in this case. The 2018 Fred’s Home Block Mourvèdre was our highest-scoring red with Antonio Galloni, which I’m particularly proud of because it validates the mission behind the Experimental Series – to put wines into bottle that are simply too good not to bottle, regardless of whether or not they fit the bill for our vineyard designate series. Each Experimental Series wine is consecutively numbered and necessarily very small in production, with bottles individually numbered. Someday maybe some of the Experimental Series wines will join the regular cast on a recurring basis, but in the meantime each wine is one that we bottle for our own pleasure and to drink fondly for many years in the future.
Like the 2018 Fred’s Home Block Mourvèdre, the 2019 Fred Rides Again Mourvèdre was fermented with 30% whole cluster for 30 days in tank (we typically drain and press our Evangelho Carignan around 18-21 days) and raised in a single neutral 600L barrel. The wine smells like our local Watmaugh strawberries baked in a cobbler, with orange citrus and a hint of Mourvèdre’s distinctive gaminess. The inclusion of Evangelho in the blend adds a bit of tension and minerality to the flesh of Fred’s Home Block on the palate, with additional spice and red fruit in the glass.
2019 EVANGELHO VINEYARD RED WINE, CONTRA COSTA COUNTY
2019 was our third year working with Evangelho Vineyard, and we’re continually in awe of the intelligence and grandeur of the site. These old vines, planted own-rooted in the 1890s in the Oakley Sands, have seen and weathered it all and are wiser for it. Oakley Sands is one of California’s most distinctive terroirs – extremely sandy soils and regularly gusty winds giving wines of freshness, elegance and perfume – and I’d argue that Evangelho Vineyard is one of California’s greatest vineyards.
THE SANDY LANDS: There is a strange region lying between Oakley and Brentwood. The soil is sandy and was originally covered with chaparral and scrub oak. Useless land, said many men who tried to farm it and made a failure. About 1887, however, James O’Hara came to the region. He bought some of this land and was laughed at. But he had ideas. He planted fruit trees on this sandy land and in doing so transformed the region. Nowhere else does the fruit ripen so early or prove so sure a crop.
–JP MUNRO FRASER, HISTORY OF CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, 1926.
Like our Cole Ranch Riesling the past two years, our 2018 and 2019 Evangelho Vineyard red wines perfectly exemplify the vintages – whereas the 2018 is zesty and bracing, primed for an exceptionally long life, the 2019 is charming and supple already in bottle. 2019s will drink well young and are the perfect counterpoint to the 2018s that will reward time in bottle.
As in previous vintages, the wine was fermented with 30% whole cluster under a submerged cap and aged for ten months in neutral 400L barrels. I love the 400L barrel size for Carignan – it retains freshness and builds tension like all large format barrels, but with a less reductive tendency than the 500L and 600L barrels that I prefer for Syrah and Mourvèdre. The Carignan from Evangelho gives a juicy wine that smells of flowers and red fruits, with a soft tannin profile and vibrant acidity.
The inclusion of cluster adds spice to the nose, while the small portion of carbonic maceration and Mourvèdre add flesh to the palate. The winemaking style is inspired by our love for the great cru Beaujolais of France (and in our book, that’s Clos de la Roilette’s Cuvée Tardive and the old-vine single parcels of Château Thivin): wines that are a joy to drink while young and age gracefully as well. Look for an extra degree of richness and viscosity on the palate of the 2019 Evangelho Red Wine – it’s positively gulp-able.
2018 SHAKE RIDGE RANCH SYRAH, SIERRA FOOTHILLS
This is, without a doubt, our finest wine yet from Shake Ridge Ranch, the very wine I had hoped we might be able to make when we first reached out to Ann Kraemer regarding fruit. Ann is unquestionably one of the finest grape growers working in California, a first-ballot Hall of Famer if there was such a thing. Her wealth of experience in the industry and expansive farming knowledge are met only by her unrivaled hospitality and graciousness, and it’s an honor to work with her every year.
When we first started working with Shake Ridge in 2016, we made the wine exactly like our Syrah from Griffin’s Lair: 50% whole cluster under a cap submerger for the first half of fermentation, roughly 50/50 clonal split of Syrah Noir and 470, and élevage in neutral 500 liter barrels for sixteen months before bottling. But, it felt like our Shake Ridge had more to give, so we started tweaking things: more or less cluster depending on the block and vintage (anywhere from 30-100%); more Syrah Noir in the blend relative to 470; a bit of co-fermented Viognier for color, mouthfeel, and perfume (2-4%); and a little light-toast new oak to polish tannin (30% new in the blend, from a single 500 liter Taransaud barrel). Because the sites are different, the winemaking needed to be different to bring out the best in each wine. It seems obvious in retrospect, but it’s taken us a couple of years of diligent work and patient teaching by Ann to understand exactly what vineyard practices will get us to where we want to go, and how we can carefully accommodate those practices in the cellar.
“The 2018 Syrah Shake Ridge is another very pretty wine in this lineup. Sweet floral notes, chalk, white pepper and red berry fruit are perked up by veins of salinity that give the wine its distinctive feel and sense of energy. Readers will find a nuanced, aromatically intense Syrah built more on elegance than power.”
– 92 POINTS, ANTONIO GALLONI (VINOUS)
*Oh hi, everyone! It's Emily. If you, like me, read the sentence asterisked above and had no idea what the heck Cody was talking about, here's the edited version I wanted to replace that sentence with, which then got vetoed because Cody wanted to keep the scientific verbiage unadulterated:
The yeast that ferments Riesling has these great little protein molecules that help sugar out on its journey to become alcohol. During fermentation though, those proteins get tired and can't quite get the last couple grams of sugar converted before the yeast cells die off. (My 2020 self can relate.) Hence, a few grams of residual sugar remain in the Riesling.
Thank you all so much for your support!
Emily, Cody, Cal & the pups