2025 Liquid Farm, Rosé of Mourvèdre, Santa Barbara County.
It was really cool recently to taste through the lineup of Jeff Nelson’s Liquid Farm winery and catch up with him, with his fabulous Rosé of Mourvèdre leading the charge and providing a wonderful refreshing start to a quick trip to the Santa Barbara wine country. This Liquid Farm Rosé, a deep pink/orange hued and complex wine in the glass, is absolutely delicious with tart cherry, strawberry, watermelon, ruby grapefruit and brambly raspberry water on the medium bodied, textural palate, along with a background of mineral tones, lavender, wet stones and herb tea notes. I’ve been reviewing this wine since 2015, so this marks ten years since the first vintage I tried of Liquid Farm Rosé of Mourvèdre, which has a pretty much a cult like following, even with us industry insiders and restaurant wine buyers, especially as this wine has the depth and flavor to go well with a range of cuisine options. Coming at low alcohol 11.5% with vibrant acidity, the balance is everything you’d want from a Provence style Rosé. Getting grapes from a range of hilly sites, on alluvial based soils with shale, sandstone and granite, around the Los Olivos area, Ballard Canyon and closer to Happy Valley the Liquid Farms Rosé is well worth searching out.
Liquid Farm, as I’ve mentioned before, known mostly for their outstanding Chardonnay and Pinots, including their beautiful Sta. Rita Hills Golden Slope Chardonnay, also makes one of the state’s most prized Rosé wines, in fact it’s called “Pink Crack” by those in the know, and looked to the region of Bandol in Provence for the inspiration. According to winery notes It is a combination of about 95% Mourvédre and 5% Grenache usually, has in the past come from the Happy Canyon area of the upper, warmer area of the Santa Ynez Valley, and now sourced from a variety of terroirs for added complexity, including the Stagliano Vineyard, Ballard Adobe Vineyard and the Gildred Vineyard. For the Mourvèdre Rosé, the grapes are pressed as soon as they arrive to the winery, keeping cool and fresh, picked a touch early to keep low sugars and typically is barrel-fermented in neutral (French) oak and then bottled after just 5 months of aging. The Liquid Farm Rosé of Mourvèdre, along with Bedrock’s Ode to Lulu, is often called the Domaine Tempier of California, which is high praise and it usually lives up to this hype, especially in vintages like this one, which is one of my favorite since the 2016 version! I also really enjoyed the single vineyard Chardonnays and in particular the Radian Vineyard Pinot Noir.
($30 Est.) 92 Points, grapelive