The exciting news in the Rasmussen household this harvest is that Caleb has asked if he can make a wine this year. We’re thrilled of course, even though we tried to play it cool because we really want this to be his decision and want him to have a sense of ownership over the process. We asked which vineyard he’d want to make wine from and his immediate (and enthusiastic) answer was SKY VINEYARD. Count us doubly thrilled. I suspect he knows how much the vineyard and the Olds family mean to us, and he had the best time on the pick when he joined me (Cody) in 2022 to harvest our Syrah. It was, I think, a foundational early memory for him – he brings it up frequently, which I absolutely adore.
We agreed that, in addition to choosing the vineyard, Cal would also need to come to the pick to help and to say thank you to Lore, Maya, Jesse, and the Enterprise crew, as well as help in the winery as we make his wine. He asked if I could do the messy parts and he would do the cleaning (lol), which seems like a fair trade. God bless our firstborn son who loves cleaning things…
Lightweight Glass and our Carbon Footprint
The other exciting piece of news to share is that we’ve just finished transitioning all of our glass molds to the lightest possible molds that still have a full punt (the indent in the bottom of the bottle). Our claret and Burgundy molds are both now just over 450 grams, and our hock mold is 540 grams. Our previous molds were around 600 grams/bottle, which means we’ve trimmed a little over three pounds off our average case weight. It doesn’t sound like a lot, and you may never notice the difference with a bottle in hand, but it is a meaningful difference in terms of our carbon footprint, especially as our shipping footprint expands farther and farther afield (Desire Lines – coming to the UK this fall!).
The wine bottle itself is the single biggest piece of the carbon footprint for wine – various studies estimate that packaging alone is 30-50% of a wine’s footprint. According to the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance, a winery can reduce its total carbon footprint by 10% (!) just by moving from average glass bottles (around 650 grams each) to lightweight glass (around 450 grams each).
We started the light-weighting process a couple of years back with a lightweight claret mold, and as of the 2022 wines we’re now using a lightweight Burgundy mold as well. If you have a keen eye for glass mold details, you’ll notice that the neck of the Burgundy mold is a little slimmer than our previous glass. If I’m being honest, I resisted the transition at first because I’m really fond of our old Burgundy mold with the wider neck and more opaque glass. But, change requires discomfort, and the change is a positive one for the world we want our boys to grow up in. Thank you all for joining us on this journey!
Fall Release Wines - Unpacking the Kabinett
A great Riesling Kabinett is a rare bird – a dazzling interplay of fruit, acidity, and sweetness, all at a lithe (and gulp-able!) 7-8% alcohol. The wine is unique to Germany, and most closely associated with the chilly Mosel Valley. The Mosel is famous as one of the world’s most northerly wine regions, where vines are so slow to accumulate sugar that fruit flavors can be extraordinarily ripe at just 16 brix. Mosel Kabinetts are some of my favorite wines in the world, and Stuart Pigott agrees, writing, "Mosel Kabinetts are the best naturally light—that is, low-alcohol—wines in the world, with an extraordinary amount of fruit, character, and elegance for only 7–9 degrees of alcohol."
The wine style associated with the term “Kabinett” has evolved over time. Today, Kabinett is the lowest level of the German prädikat system and means that the grapes were picked with a minimum must weight between 16 and 20 brix (depending on the German wine region), yielding a wine with a minimum alcohol of 7.0% and typically between 40 and 60 g/l residual sugar (in the modern era – in the 1970s and 1980s, Mosel Kabinetts were typically 20-30 g/l RS).
But, Riesling geeks should note that, prior to enactment of Germany’s 1971 Wine Law, the term Kabinett – or Cabinet – meant something entirely different. Frank Schoonmaker’s 1956 Wines of Germany explains:
First, the word Kabinett (or Cabinet or Kabinettweine). Originally wines so marked constituted a sort of private reserve of the vineyard owner, and in some cases were not offered for general public sale. The term originated in the Rheingau. Legally, the term has no standing and may be given by an producer to any wines he sees fit; in practice, however, among the great vineyard-owners of the Rhine, it has a very precise meaning, albeit one which varies from one vineyard-owner to another… Briefly, and in general, a Kabinett wine is of superior grade, though certainly not a rarity – all Auslesen, and almost always all Spätlesen, have Kabinett rank, and in years such as 1953 so do many other wines of less distinguished origin by superior quality.
For scholars of the current prädikat system, that is a deeply counterintuitive statement, that both Auslese and Spätlese could be considered Kabinett. Regarding the difference in meaning pre- and post-1971, I love David Schildknecht’s take, in his usual intelligent and incisive fashion:
‘Cabinet,' an old and honorable term of approbation borrowed from British usage and meaning in essence 'suitable or important enough to reside or take place in a special room,' had the sense sucked from it and reemerged with a ‘K’ and two 't's’ as a category of wine meeting a very minimal level of sugar indeed. This was like taking the notion of 'distinguished citizen' and redefining it as 'anyone who has managed never to run afoul of the law.’
Despite my love of these wines, I didn’t think there was any way we’d make one of our own. We generally pick Riesling between 21 and 22 brix for our GG-style wines, but a proper Kabinett should be picked well before that. And not only does the chemistry have to be right (sugar begets alcohol…), the phenolics have to be somewhat resolved, and the grapes need to be sufficiently flavor-ripe. As often as I dreamed about a Desire Lines Kabi, it just seemed preposterous to think we could make that wine, let alone sell it.
And that, friends, brings us to the first wine of our Fall 2023 release, where the story continues.
The 2022 vintage at Massa Vineyard presented the perfect opportunity to make a wine style we never imagined would be possible in the Desire Lines lineup. I took my first sample on September 4 and was surprised at the amount of flavor in the grapes, even at 16 brix. Skins were still chewy, and acidities were beyond bright, but the flavors were intriguingly advanced. Another visit to the vineyard on September 10, after the end of the heat dome, confirmed both my hopes and fears: the grapes tasted great, with laser sharp flavors and vibrant acidities, but the vine canopies were collapsing quickly after a week of intense heat, meaning it might be challenging for the vines to produce additional photosynthate (sugar) to further ripen the grapes. The year prior, I’d noted that our 2021 Massa Riesling had a really beautiful moment of balance late in fermentation, at maybe halbtrocken sugar levels (9-18 g/l RS), but I didn’t want to stop the fermentation yet. But, armed with that suspicion in 2022 and knowing that the vines needed to be picked, we went for it and planned to make our first Riesling Kabinett.
What resulted is a wine we’re thrilled about, and what we believe is the only Kabinett-style Riesling ever bottled in California. There have been plenty of sweet wines going all the way back to the 1960s, but typically in what might be considered a Spätlese or Auslese style, and none I can find record of with just 7.5% alcohol. This feels like an unusual seminal moment in California Riesling that will be hard to repeat, but I’m in love with this wine and so excited to introduce it to the world.
Our Massa Vineyard Kabi Riesling is precocious, bright, and lush. Lemon, green apple, and orange citrus are suffused with green herbal and floral essences. The palate is delicate and sorbet-like, with a lusciously lingering and stone-laced finished. We chose to stop this fermentation with cross-flow filtration rather than a strong dose of sulfur (typically 200 ppm), so I find this to be more expressively fruity and less reductive/savory than the typical Mosel Riesling.
The vines were planted at Cole Ranch in 1973, making it one of the oldest Riesling vineyards in the country. The vineyard sits in a narrow valley in the mountains between Boonville and Ukiah. The valley benefits from the cooling maritime influence of nearby Anderson Valley, and yet has a large diurnal and seasonal range of temperatures like inland Mendocino County. It snows in Cole Ranch once or twice a winter, and by October the nights are freezing cold. The vineyard is looking better than ever thanks to the care of new owners Mike and Jill Lucia, and Mike’s right-hand man Evie who lives on the ranch and has taken care of the vines for longer than we’ve been getting fruit. We are fortunate to work with the fruit, and forever grateful that John Cole thought to plant Riesling in his valley almost 50 years ago.
Like the 2021, our 2022 rendition of Cole Ranch crackles with energy – a tightrope balance of bracing freshness and unctuous fruit. Orange confit, white peach, and tropical fruits aromas are accented by ginger, jasmine, and honey. The palate is decidedly flamboyant, with terrific fruit density just barely held in check by vivid acidity and subtle saline notes. Give this lots of air, or do as we do and drink over three or four days (simply re-cork and pop back in the fridge). 3.5 g/L RS.
2022 Kick Ranch Sauvignon Blanc, Fountaingrove District, Sonoma County
Kick Ranch is in the cool Fountaingrove District AVA in the Mayacamas mountains north of Santa Rosa. The block of Sauvignon Blanc is planted on the rockiest soils at Kick Ranch, at the top of the ridge as the vineyard road winds upward past the rest of the blocks. The rocky soils keep the vine’s vigor in check; careful canopy management creating a range of sun exposures gives a whole range of fruit flavors in the wine; and cold nights and generally cool days give the wine a citrusy, saline zest and floral raciness. For the first time in 2022, we were able to get fruit from the Musqué clone of Sauvignon Blanc planted in Block E1, to complement our rows of clone 317 planted next door in Block E2. The inclusion of the Musqué fruit brings a bit more exoticism and effusiveness to Kick’s typically zesty and vibrant profile.
The grapes were crushed by foot in the picking bins before being quickly loaded into the press for pressing. The juice was fermented in a combination of 228L and 300L barrels with a bit of new oak (22%) from the illustrious Stockinger cooperage in Austria, for a touch of floral, sappy oak sweetness. The wine was left on lees for ten months in barrel before bottling in July.
Our 2022 Kick Ranch Sauvignon Blanc is an arresting wine – the nose features high-toned citrus and tropical fruits overlaid with a touch of reduction and subtle new wood. On the palate, green apple and vibrant mandarin orange harmonize with hints of guava and passionfruit. A delicate herbal undertone adds depth and complexity, while a bit of sappy oak sweetness lends a balancing hand to the electric and zest acidity. As CellarTracker reviews on our 2021 Kick Ranch Sauvignon Blanc have noted, there is superb intensity to the mineral-driven and dense flavors, with a chiseled frame and palate-staining finish. This is a knock-your-socks-off Sauvignon Blanc.
2022 Evangelho Vineyard Red Wine, Contra Costa County
Contra Costa County is home to one of California’s most striking viticultural sights – own-rooted vineyards planted in the Oakley Sands, a soil type first named and mapped in a 1933 soil survey prepared by E.J. Carpenter for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Chemistry and Soils. The Oakley Sands are directly adjacent to the San Joaquin River on its south bank, just a mile before its junction with the Sacramento River; thus, the vines are planted, effectively, in coastal dunes comprised of weathered granitic sand blown and washed out of the Sierra Nevada over millennia. These sandy soils are very deep and somewhat excessively drained, lacking stratification and having almost no clay and loam. Sandy soils are easy for vine roots to penetrate and fortunately very hostile to the root louse phylloxera, so the vines thrive on their own roots. Own-rooted vineyards in most of the world’s wine regions are extraordinarily rare; the practice is a relic from the time before phylloxera. These sandy soils imbue the wines with distinctively suave and fine-grained tannins.
Vineyards planted in the Oakley Sands have a unique climate as well, thanks to the winds that blow through on a recurring daily basis. The growing season in the region begins early - budbreak is reliably two weeks ahead of our other vineyards, owing to moderate spring temperatures and dry, sandy soils that warm quickly, thereby initiating root pressure and sap flow. The warmth of the summer sun is tempered by the onrush of coastal winds that begin a little before lunchtime each day, averaging 10-12 mph and often exceeding 20 mph in the late afternoon. Far across the Delta from the Oakley Sands, the Central Valley begins heating up in the morning as soon as the sun crests the ridgeline of the Sierra Nevada. This regional warming results in a low-pressure area that pulls cold, marine air from the coast far inland, through the Petaluma Gap and the Golden Gate, across San Pablo Bay, and through the Carquinez Strait. This daily wind stress alters the vines’ respiratory rates: to avoid excessive transpirational water loss, the vines close their stomata when the winds pick up around noon, halting photosynthesis. This produces grapes with low pHs (3.3-3.5) and fresh, vibrant flavors.
The vines at Evangelho Vineyard – now over 120 years old – were planted by Manuel Viera in the 1890s on land purchased from John Marsh’s Los Meganos Rancho. Manuel Viera was born on the island of Pico, in the Portuguese Azores, and he emigrated to the United States at the age of 14. The first record of the plantings at Evangelho Vineyard, from the 1926 History of Contra Costa County, notes Viera’s skill as a farmer: “He was always progressive and has kept abreast of the times, using more modern agricultural implements to facilitate his ranch work.”
In the 1950s, the care of the vines passed from the Viera family to Manuel Evangelho, who purchased 11 acres of the vineyard and secured a long-term lease on the remaining 29 acres. Manuel Evangelho was born, like Manuel Viera, in the Azores Islands; he started work as a farmhand at Evangelho Vineyard in the 1930s. Manuel’s youngest son, Frank, was born in 1946 and grew up amidst the old vines. Bedrock Wine Co. bought the ranch from Frank Evangelho in 2017, ensuring that the vines remain in the best of hands.
All of that to say that Evangelho Vineyard is undoubtedly one of California’s greatest vineyard sites, home to own-rooted vines planted in the 1890s in almost pure sand and subjected to a near-constant breeze. The vineyard has been farmed thoughtfully and progressively for well over a century, and it shows – the vines are remarkably healthy, resilient, and wise. I love the Carignan and Mourvèdre off the ranch, especially in warm years like 2022 when the flavors really pop. Our 2022 Evangelho Vineyard Red Wine flaunts an effusive personality, with sweet black cherry and blood orange soaring from the glass, buoyed by herbal nuances of sage, rose petal, mint, and cedar. The palate is plush and vibrant, with typically fine-grained tannin framing a gorgeous finish. This will age gracefully as always, but is remarkably open and candid at the moment on pop and pour.
2021 Lichau Hill Cabernet Sauvignon, Petaluma Gap, Sonoma County
We’re thrilled to re-introduce our Cabernet Sauvignon from Lichau Hill Vineyard, which has been missing the past couple years because of smoke exposure in 2020 and because we’ve increased the élevage time from 15 months to 20 months.
Armed with three years’ experience with the vineyard and thanks to a close relationship with the vineyard owners whom we love dearly, we’ve made a number of subtle tweaks to our Lichau Hill Cabernet Sauvignon. All of which, I think, make the case that this vineyard should be regarded as an iconic (and unmistakably distinctive) California Cabernet site.
The location alone makes Lichau Hill a standout vineyard: a Cabernet site so unusually situated in the Petaluma Gap (and Sonoma Coast). Similar to how we felt driving up to Cole Ranch in 2016 and paper-clipping a note scrawled on a piece of torn-up lunch sack, our discovery of Lichau Hill in 2018 had us feeling like we had struck gold. In the few years since, we’ve had the fortune of working with a dream team of vine-growing excellence to make this wine. First, Roger Mead and Hsiomei Hung, vineyard owners who are the trifecta of enthusiastic, engaged in the viticultural work, and receptive to new ideas. Secondly, Victor Rosales, vineyard manager who does almost all the handwork in the vineyard by himself. And finally, our friend and Bedrock colleague Jake Neustadt, who acts as consulting viticulturalist and is a wealth of viticulture knowledge and experience.
Beginning in 2019, we were able to move our blocks to no herbicide in the vine rows, with clovers sown as cover crop for weed suppression and for their nitrogen-fixing properties. This year, we’re trialing a style of un-hedged canopy management called tressage, so far with great results. We’re also picking earlier than we used to, to take advantage of the vineyard’s gift for resolved phenolics and terrific perfume. In the cellar, we’re increasingly utilizing a little saignée, warmer fermentations, longer macerations, a post-malo racking, and a longer élevage to bring richness, complexity, and a subtle savory imprint to what is naturally a fresh, vibrant, and silken wine style.
Our 2021 Lichau Hill Cabernet Sauvignon is a head-spinning wine and shows just how magical this vineyard site is. Raspberry, cassis, and rose petal leap from the glass, while spice, cedar, and tobacco infuse this expressive Petaluma Gap Cabernet with tremendous intensity. On the palate, the wine is both deliciously engaging and classically built, with fresh acidity, fine grained tannins, and a sweet core of red fruit held in a lovely balance. We’d recommend lots of air to unlock everything this wine has to give – give it a double decant a half-day in advance of enjoying.
