Once and Future Bedrock Vineyard Zinfandel 2022

Morgan Twain-Peterson MW, son of Joel Peterson of Ravenswood fame, is the founder and winemaker at this still young California producer, founded in 2007. He learned his craft from a very young age but went to New York for an education in history and political science before returning to the wine world in Australia (Tintara and Noone), Bordeaux (Lynch Bages) and then back to California to establish Bedrock in a converted chicken coop and goat pen, all the while studying for and passing his Master of Wine exams. After a while he invited his old and dear friend Chris Cottrell, who came from a career selling wine in New York to making it in the Golden State.

The two friends source their fruit from the eponymous vineyard owned by his family and from vineyards around California's wine country, focusing on old vines whenever they can. It is something of a mission to rehabilitate almost forgotten vineyards too, sometimes discovering vines old enough to remember Prohibition, planted by pioneers of viticulture in California. Many are planted with numerous varieties, leading to Morgan and Chris creating field blends in which the precise composition of the blends cannot be detailed.

Zinfandel, mataro (aka mourvèdre), carignan, petite sirah, alicante bouschet, grenache, semillon, gewürztraminer, trousseau gris and riesling are some of the varieties employed from these places, making wines that are witness to their origin.

In the winery they want to keep things simple, handling the fruit as little as possible, using uninoculated yeasts to ferment whole clusters, very rarely (if ever) fining and completely avoiding the additions that others sometimes use in California, such as water and tartaric acid.

The style of each wine is dictated by the vines and where they grow, with the only proviso being that the results retain poise to balance the almost effortless ripeness, flavour and aromatics their Californian grapes give them.