2022 Carboniste "Pet Nat Rouge Brut", California, USA

ABOUT THIS WINE

From the winery: "If you are looking for a wine that will surprise you and make your taste buds do a happy dance, you will love this beast of a sparkling wine.  The Rouge Brute is a 50% Merlot and 50% Albarino blend and a 'mullet wine,' as we like to say.  The plumy richness of the Merlot greets you upfront while the playful lighter Albarino waves to you from the back.  Enjoy big soft tannin and some herbal character for a bottle of sparkling wine with guts.  Merlot and Albariño were fermented separately and blended before bottling. The Merlot, from the Santa Crus Mountains, was partially destemmed for one ferment and left on the stem to ferment in a second ferment. This created two separate styles of Merlot giving depth and layers to the finished red portion of the wine. The wine was bottled with fresh yeast and a small amount of sugar, which yielded lower pressure than our other wines. This low pressure is in compliment to the red wine tannins."

ABOUT THIS PRODUCER

CARBONISTE is a dedicated producer of modern Californian sparkling wines from husband and wife duo, Dan and Jacqueline Person. Dan spent three years at Schramsberg, staged at D.R.C in 2009, and spent the past few years with Dan Petroski at Larkmead; Jacqueline a longtime and invested consultant for Naked Wines. Together, they embarked on their passion for sparkling wine and produced three flagship items: Sparkling Albariño, Extra Brut Pinot Noir Rosé, and a Pét-Nat Pinot Grigio.

In place of an homage to Champagne, CARBONISTE is a proud statement about the beauty of California’s fruit. They found that using the traditional French techniques to make sparkling wine in California didn’t quite work with their fruit. Instead, they tried to think about the best way to express the fresh, fruity flavors of, for example, Sacramento Delta Albariño, in sparkling form. What this means is that they are not a pét-nat, méthode traditionnelle, or méthode ancestrale house – each wine they produce is handled a bit differently depending on the fruit.