Please Wash Your Shoes
TASTING NOTES:
2019 Bedrock Vineyard - “As seductive as a cherry pie cooling on a windowsill. The aromas of black- and blueberries along with vanilla & violets will have you dancing along tippie-toe, reaching for a second glass. Definitely our most seductive bottling yet full of red and black plums and cherries touched with a hint of vanilla and the allure of violets.” (AbV 14.5%)
2020 Bedrock Vineyard - “A veritable farmer’s market of dark stone fruit from bright red cherry plums to deep intense Damson plums. There is an oddly satisfying umami character from the way this wine blooms on the nose to the way it fills the mouth with generous fruit leather, compote, and an unexpected touch of anise.” (AbV 13.7%, pH 3.57)
2022 Bedrock Vineyard - “Perhaps one of the dumbest/best nicknames for a town I’ve ever heard was Santa Rosa, capital of Sonoma County, that some folks used to describe as ‘the buckle on the prune belt’. Well buckle up folks for a study in plumminess from the garnet-red hue tinged with accents of plum purple to the full deep flavor one can only describe as plum-like and aromas of red stone fruits of all varieties from Morello cherries to Damsons in all states of ripeness. There is a touch of tannin on the finish for the sake of enjoying with food but this is more a wine to be drunk than a drink to be chewed.” (AbV 14.5%)
VARIETALS: Merlot
BARRELS: New French 400L puncheon and neutral 228L barrique
PAIRS WITH: N/A
THAT REMINDS ME OF: Bedrock Vineyard — which has vines dating back to the 1880s.
The 1880s were a genuinely cursed decade for vineyards. Phylloxera, the microscopic aphid-like pest that had already devastated French wine country, was tearing through California at the same time those Bedrock vines were going in. Some growers lost everything. Others quietly grafted onto resistant rootstock and kept planting, playing a very long game indeed — the kind of confidence that only makes sense if you’re thinking in terms of centuries rather than quarterly earnings.
Phylloxera itself is a weird little villain. It can’t actually fly. It spreads mostly through infected soil on boots, tools, and wagon wheels, which means the single greatest weapon against it in the 19th century was essentially “please wash your shoes.” Entire appellations were wiped out because someone walked from one vineyard to another. For a pest about the size of a sesame seed, its body count is staggering — historians estimate it destroyed roughly two-thirds of European vineyards between the 1860s and 1900s. There are wine regions still recovering, in a sense, because the pre-phylloxera vines were simply gone and nobody wrote down exactly what they tasted like.
The fix — grafting European Vitis vinifera onto American rootstock, which evolved alongside phylloxera and developed a tolerance for it — remains one of the stranger ironies in agricultural history. American roots saved European wine. And somewhere in Sonoma Valley, through all of it, some of those 1880s vines just kept going.
ICYMI, you have two choices:
- Worried Summer heat might get to your wine before your wine gets to you? Order from the sale linked here, and we’ll get it to you at a cooler time of year!
- Want it shipped now? Every package during the summer will have protected temp control ground shipping for much of the country that takes longer but will ensure safe delivery. Expect up to two weeks for delivery. Now through the September 12th offer.
