Estate Rose 2023

Stolpman’s Bandol Inspired Rosé
Estate Rosé always delivers intense floral aromas and concentrated richness due to the vineyard’s tiny dry-farmed grapes.  Of course, the richness all packs into the zesty, crisp, dry rosé profile.  
For the better part of the decade, we focused Estate Rosé on the purity of 100% Grenache.  However, after a research trip to Bandol in 2019, we couldn’t resist the temptation to add Mourvèdre (and Syrah) to the blend in 2020.  2020 provided a new benchmark for the cuvee, and we have selected small amounts of Mourvèdre and Syrah for the Estate Rosé since.
Not only have we been adding Mourvèdre and Syrah to the rosé blend, we’ve been adding some of our lowest-yielding, most-concentrated selections of each from the entire estate.  The Mourvèdre hails from the bottom of the 6,000 vine/acre, head-pruned, own-rooted, pre-clonal Pliocene block.  We harvest the Syrah from the own-rooted hillsides leading up to the Angeli plateau.
The mouthfeel and dynamic, age-worthy concentration necessitates some additional time to evolve prior to bottling (6 months from harvest to bottle), and the majority of the cuvee will be held until our Fall wine club release to allow for textures to flesh out and aromatics to unfurl.
Healthy late season rains pushed back bud-break and the growing season by 3-4 weeks.  We escaped the summer without any extreme heat events that would have accelerated ripening.  We didn’t pick estate rosé fruit until October 4-6, and the evenly moderate late summer weather gave us wonderful flavor ripeness combined with refreshing acidity.
Lush, perfumed, rose petal and hibiscus aromatics meet bright, sunny, red berry fruit kissed with white peach and ripe mango.  A citrus sorbet drizzled with creamier purees, topped with a mint leaf. The front palate washes into a substantial, fleshy body before the precise, crisp finish.  Taut and bone dry but with a float of peach and red apple fruit whirling above the lemon wedge.   In its youth, the wine possesses a brimming, razzle-dazzle, zesty energy pent up under the cork just waiting to burst out of the glass.