Bouquet of Rosés
Are you dreaming of spring flowers too? Prepare for a new season with some rosés perfect for both cool and warm weather days!
Breaking Bread
Grapes: 100% Zinfandel
Place: Dry Creek Valley - Sonoma - California
Process: This wine is the debut rosé for Breaking Bread. Having made Grenache Rosé for the last 15 years for Kokomo Winery, I wanted to take a different, more hands-off approach with this Zinfandel Rosé. When making unfined and unfiltered white and rosé wines, stability is critical. To make this wine stable it had to go completely through secondary fermentation (malolactic) so as not to referment in the bottle. With our more traditional rosé, we fine the proteins out with an organic clay as well as cold stabilize the wine for aesthetic purposes. In this wine, you will find sediment and proteins visible, giving it a somewhat hazy and unfiltered look. This is deliberate and something that I love about natural wines. Zinfandel’s abundant natural acidity makes it the perfect varietal for this style of intentional rose. These grapes were picked at 19.5° Brix to result in a 12.3% alcohol.
This wine was sourced from Chiquita Vineyard, located directly across the street from our winery in Dry Creek Valley. It was planted in 1963 and is 100% dry farmed. Its old head pruned vines are iconic to the Dry Creek Valley and gave us a delicious expression of the most esteemed grape in the valley.
200cs Produced
Family: Erik Miller is the winemaker/owner of Kokomo and Breaking Bread.
“ My interest in natural wine came about as I noticed a shift in our industry toward lower alcohol, food friendly and low intervention wine. When I decided to start Breaking Bread, it was very important to me, artistically, to build something completely different than my first conception, Kokomo. I wanted to be challenged in my craft as a winemaker and I also wanted to understand fermentation from a different perspective that could possibly play a part in future Kokomo vintages.”
“Wine is a natural product in the first place. I think our craft got diluted with the advancement of technology and science. Additives and commercial yeast became commonplace, and people began building wines to certain specifications, at times in complete disregard of terroir or the grapes themselves.
As a novice winemaker, I relied on commercial yeast as a security blanket to make sure that the wine went fully through fermentation. I had heard a lot about native yeast but was hesitant to gamble with our fruit because I was not confident that the native yeast would have an alcohol tolerance high enough to get me through fermentation cleanly. When I did finally experiment with native yeast, I was surprised at not only how effective they are but how the unique character of the vineyard shines through the fermentation process for a less adulterated expression of terroir. I came to realize that adding anything to fermentation takes away from the wine. Our goal is to have a very hands-off approach that highlights the purity of fruit and the deliciousness of a lighter bodied red wine.”
Bottle: $29 | Glass: $13
Sassara “Esotico”
Grapes: 30% red, 70% white
Place: Veneto - Italy
Process: Is it red? Is it pink? Is it orange? Who cares?! 30% red grapes (Corvina, Rossanella, Rondinella, Molinara) and 70% white grapes (Fernanda, Moscato, Trebbianello, Trebbiano, Garganega, Tocai), all from old vines. Hand harvested and spontaneously co-fermented with 10 days of skin maceration and without temperature control. Aged in stainless steel. No filtering or fining and minimal added sulfur as necessary. With 14 hectares, ten of them are dedicated to vines, while the other four are made up of woodlands and olive groves.
Family: This is the passionate work of Alessia Bertaiola and her husband, Stefano, a 3rd generation winemaker whose family has had this property for more than 50 years. Alessia and Stefano represent the 4th generation to work the morainic hill of Monte Mamaor. They took over the property in 2007, and with Alessia's strong background in agricultural research and development, quickly converted each plot to biodynamic farming. They have been making certified organic wine during that time, but due to a lack of inspiration, they took the plunge into producing a more naturalistic expression of their incredible fruit and soil, greatly inspired by the likes of Danillo Marcucci and others.
The area was once an ancient sea, and the hills were shaped by later glacial activity which left the soils rich in marine deposits and a complexity of morainic sediment. Alessia and Stefano are blessed with mostly big, thick, sturdy old vines roughly 60 to 70 years old, with some younger vines they have planted themselves. Vine training is what's known as a "Veronese double arch", a variation on the double guyot. They grow all autochthonous grapes with red varieties such as Corvina, Rossanella, Rondinella and Molinara; and white grapes like Fernanda, Moscato, Trebbianello, Trebbiano, Garganega and Tocai.
Bottle: $31 | Glass: $13
Robert Sinskey Vineyards “Vin Gris”
Grapes: 100% Pinot Noir
Place: Carneros - California
Process: Stunningly beautiful, prime, organically farmed Pinot Noir grown on RSV’s “Carneros estate” vineyards are night-picked by hand, delivered to the cellar door kissed by the morning dew where it is delicately whole-cluster pressed. Only the delicious “free-run” juice (no skins, stems or seeds) is cold fermented. That is it! No manipulation, no blend back of other juices for color; this wine is grown well, handled delicately and fermented for purity. It is an honest rosé. Very limited production - dependent on the vintage’s yield.
Family: Sinskey was founded by Dr. Robert Sinskey, a prominent cataract surgeon in 1986. Dr. Sinskey (died in 2015) who collected wines for many years before becoming a winery owner made his mark on the world of ophthalmology from his home base in Los Angeles. His contributions to the industry were significant. Long involved in research, his early studies involved examining the eyes of Hiroshima bomb survivors from 1951 to 1953 while working in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He began teaching at UCLA in 1955 and opened their eye services center. Later he invented and patented several important surgical devices including a modified J-loop IOL (intraocular lens) used during cataract surgery and what is known as the Sinskey IOL Hook, which is still very much in use today.
In 1971 Sinskey founded a mobile surgery center, performing eye surgery in an outpatient environment rather than at hospitals. He also founded the Assil Gaur Eye Institute of Los Angeles; two locations continue to serve the city, one in Santa Monica and the other in Beverly Hills.
Bottle: $45 | Glass: $20
Cune Rioja Rosado
Grapes: 100% Tempranillo
Place: Rioja - Spain
Process: Tempranillo grapes harvested manually and stored in stainless steel tanks at a temperature of 10-12ºC to avoid fermentation initially. The must, which has already acquired the desired pink tone, is run off between 24 and 48 hours later. Fermentation takes place at a controlled temperature between 16°C and 18°C to maintain the aromas and fruit that characterise this wine.
Family: n 1879, the Real de Asúa brothers arrived in Haro to embark on what would become one of the longest-standing histories in the wine world. A trip initially taken for health reasons led to the creation of Compañía Vinícola del Norte de España (C.V.N.E.) in the iconic Barrio de la Estación railway station.
This marked the birth of a family winery that has grown over five generations. Today, the winery is still run by the same family, producing quality, artisanal and traditional wines that grace tables in more than 90 countries. An industry leader in Spain and winner of prestigious wine awards including accolades from Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate over the course of its history, CVNE has continued to grow while always remaining true to its objective of creating premium wines and tapping into the potential of the outstanding vineyards in its environs. The group currently has eight wineries in Spain’s principal wine-growing regions: CVNE, Imperial, Viña Real and Viñedos del Contino in Rioja, Roger Goulart in Penedés, Bela in Ribera del Duero, Virgen del Galir in Valdeorras and La Val in Rías Baixas.
These wineries produce a wide variety of wines (the best from each region), combining tradition and modernity to create reliable and characterful wines, including: Imperial, the flagship of the winery, ranked the world’s number one wine in 2013 by American magazine Wine Spectator (the first wine in Spain to receive the accolade); Monopole, Spain’s oldest white wine; the Corona 1939 white wine, and the Viña Real 1947 red wine (a Robert Parker 100-point wine); Contino, the first single-vineyard wine; and Roger Goulart, a pioneering producer of traditional method sparkling wine in Spain since 1882.
Bottle: $15 | Glass: $6