2008 Sonoma County Rose – $14

Our Rose is a complex blend of Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, and Zinfandel. The fresh and light flavors make for an elegant wine with a sweet touch that pairs well with a hot summer day.

Winemaker's Comments

Our Rose is a complex blend of Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, and Zinfandel. Aromas of voluptuous strawberry and watermelon intermingle. Juicy strawberry and pomegranate flavors dance on the palate while cherry leads into a smooth, crisp finish of refreshing citrus. The fresh and light flavors make for an elegant wine with a sweet touch that pairs well with a hot summer day and a Watermelon and Dungeness Crab Salad. The brightened red color assures the wine aficionado this is not a blush wine.

Rose

Rose wines are wines that are not truly red, but have enough of a reddish tinge to make them assuredly not white. Our Rose is produced using a technique known as Saignée. In this technique, we remove some of the juice from the must early on and ferment it separately. Removing the juice early on keeps a lot of the color and tannin from transferring into the juice. After the fermentations of Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, and Zinfandel are complete, the best blend of the varietals is bottled and left to bottle age until release.

Sonoma County

More than twice the size as neighboring Napa, Sonoma County overflows with wineries and grape varieties. Within this appellation’s one million total acres, over 190 wineries make their home. Practically every variety of grape grown in California can be found somewhere in Sonoma County. Winemaking here is steeped in history, going back to the 1820s, when Franciscan monks first planted vineyards with the Mission variety – a grape that unfortunately yielded disappointing table wines.

The real progress began with Hungarian immigrant, Agoston Haraszthy, today considered the ‘Father of California Wine’. As early as the 1850s Haraszthy had the foresight to recognize the region’s tremendous viticultural potential, founding the original Buena Vista Winery here in 1857.

Traveling to Europe in 1861, Haraszthy brought back more than 100,000 grape cuttings of over 300 different varieties from France, Germany, Spain and Italy. Most of these he planted in Sonoma, leaving a mark that is evident in the county’s thriving wine industry today.

Diverse in its climate, soils, geography and grapes, the patchwork quilt that is Sonoma County contains AVAs on top of AVAs, and sub-AVAs within them. Today, Sonoma County as a wine region is as varied as any could possibly be, with something for just about everyone. Sonoma County is America’s viticultural cornucopia!

Preferred Pricing

1 case: 20% off, 2 cases: 30% off, 3 - 4 cases: 40% off, 5 + cases: 50% off
Wine club members are given an additional 5% off on all purchases.