2019 Poe Wines, Rosé, California -photo grapelive

2019 Poe Wines, Rosé of Pinot Noir/Pinot Meunier, California.
I’ve been a fan of Samatha Sheehan’s wines since she first starting making her wines, especially her Poe Rosé, with this 2019 being the best one to date, it makes for a delightful Spring treat and a much needed distraction from the news in the world. Poe started back in 2009, with Sheehan being inspired to craft her own wines after visiting Burgundy and the Champagne regions of France, she now hand makes a stellar collections of wines that includes traditional Champagne method sparkling wines, (this) Rosé, Chardonnay(s), Pinot Noir(s), a special nouveau Pinot Noir and a fabulous Pinot Meunier. Sheehan’s Poe Rosé is vibrantly fresh, dry and minerally crisp with bright sour cherry, grapefruit, strawberry and watermelon fruits along with delicate rosewater, spring herbs, light spices and wet stones. This steely and delicious wine, as Sheehan notes, is a blend of 66% Pinot Noir from the Manchester Ridge vineyard located in the Mendocino Ridge AVA, which sits on hilltop only a few miles from the Pacific Ocean on the far western side of the Anderson Valley, with 34% Pinot Meunier sourced from the historic Van der Kamp Vineyard on Sonoma Mountain. The Van der Kamp vineyard has been farmed for over 100 years, having some of the oldest Pinot Noir wines in California, plus this special parcel of Meunier, as Sheehan adds, and is comprised of Speckles loam, Volcanic Tuff and decomposed ancient stream-beds, which adds to the structure wine.

The Poe Rosé is 100% “direct to press” version of dry pink, picked in the vineyard to be Rosé, as opposed to a saignée, that would be a bleed off from ripe red wine grapes, with the hand harvested fruit picked in the cool of the night, and pressed lightly first thing the following morning. Then pressed juice, according to Samantha was transferred into a stainless steel tank where it was fermented naturally at 48 degrees for 2 weeks, explaining the cold fermentation preserves the purity of flavors, with every nuance and heightens the aromatics. Sheehan inhibited malolactic fermentation on her Pinot Noir/Meunier Rosé, again to keep this vibrant and zesty form, and it was sterile filtered so it would not go through malolactic fermentation in bottle. There’s a lot to love about this Rosé, which is just being released and is available on Sheehan’s website right now and it is also a great time to support California’s small wineries that under tremendous hardship with the current situation and these scary times. Poe’s sparkling wines are absolutely stunning efforts, some of the most interesting grower producer style bubbles in the state and are classic Brut dry bottlings, plus Sheehan’s Chards and Pinots deserve your attention as well. The Rosé season is well and truly here and there are going to be an amazing array of dry pinks coming to you and this Poe is one that you certainly should try!
($24 Est.) 92 Points, grapelive

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