2016 Bedrock Wine Co., Heritage Red, Evangelho Vineyard, Contra Costa County.
Beautifully textured and ripely flavored the new Bedrock Evangelho Heritage is a refined Zin based red from own rooted vines that were planted in the 1890’s, it’s a juicy wine that has a sense of vintage influenced restraint and a it has a wonderfully long finish. The Bedrock owned Evengelho Vineyard is a historic site that is a California treasure with over a hundred and twenty years of tradition and producing high quality grapes, and the Contra Costa’s Evengelho family has been tending these vines since 1936, they are grown on the Delhi Sand (soils) of the San Joaquin River Delta, the sand helps give the vineyard it’s longevity and allows this site to keep producing beautiful and concentrated fruit, as highlighted by Morgan Twain-Peterson’s Bedrock Heritage Red. This version is close to 60% Zinfandel and 35% Mataro, with the remainder being a touch of Carignane, a little Palomino and maybe a few other varietals and comes in at 14.1%, which delivers an elegant performance on the palate with smooth layers of black raspberry, brambleberry, sweet plum and kirsch along with dark spring flowers, a subtle Mourvedre earthiness, grilled herbs, satiny tannins, anise and incense. There’s a surprising lift that keeps things exciting and provides this deeply purple/garnet hued and full bodied wine a grace and focus that makes it stand out. Twain-Peterson compares this to a southern Rhone red, and I certainly can see that, it reminds me a bit of Chateauneuf-du-Pape in style, but with it’s classic Zinfandel flavor profile, he raised this serious red in large French foudre after co-fermenting this wine by each block, it gains tremendously with air, dropping it’s simple hedonism for a more complex animal and revealing coveted detailing and mineral tones, it’s a wine to enjoy now with robust cuisine or aged another 5 to 10 years, it’s impressive by nature, especially if you give it time to show it’s full self, it’s a sleeper in Bedrock’s stellar lineup.
($35 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive
