Where's Linus, Rosé Mendocino 2021

100% Petite Sirah

Organic/Sustainable

California, United States

From the distributor-

“I was searching for good-quality organic wine in California at a moment when we thought there might be 100% tariffs on all European wine, in January 2020. There was a horrible feeling of “I might lose it all”. I spoke with some huge negociant houses and I just couldn’t move forward. Then I spoke to Chris on the phone. I immediately knew we would do tons of projects together. He is a truly special human being. I’ve never met a winemaker who delves into the extreme details of the techniques of winemaking while talking philosophy. Chris does. It is like meeting a philosophy wizard of the cellar. Plus, he and his family had a “Ridin with Biden” ice-cream cake! How awesome is that?”

“To make things even more personal, the Where’s Linus? label is a collaboration between my husband and my brother.. An abstract map of California… The dream of where to go to find what you are looking for. We all need a dream these days, and when people I love collaborate on moving along that road, it’s pretty great.”

“They say crisis is an opportunity… and that definitely rings true in this case!”

Making of: harvested and whole cluster pressed, slowly (early September through late December) fermented by ambient yeats in a stainless steel tank and kept on its fermentation lees up until bottling in spring. It saw SO2 only before pressing (total 13ppm), bottled without fining or filtration.

Personality: A bold, complex rosé with subtlety and nuance. The dry-farmed Petite Sirah vines struggled with the drought in 2021 and produced smaller than usual berries with higher skin-to-pulp ratio causing the wine to shown deeper purple hues than one would usually expect from a Rosé. Its seriously deep color is matched with a structure that’s uncommon to the genre which makes this wine a refreshing sipper when chilled, but also is a formidable food wine, not to slink away from pairing with the most stoggy cuisine.