2012 Cuvée Karatas

It's always a treat to see what Morgan Twain Peterson and his colleague Chris Cottrell are up to at Bedrock, where the focus is on showcasing California's heritage sites and their extraordinary pedigree, something Bedrock and a handful of like-minded wineries have taken with notable enthusiasm. Many of the wines in this range are field blends, sometimes also known as 'mixed blacks' that Sonoma's Italian settlers favored back in the 1800 and early 1900s, when many of these vineyard were first planted. The Bedrock wines are relatively intense and powerful in style, but they are also quite faithful to a sense of place. The Old Vine Zinfandel and North Coast Syrah, both $25, are among the best wines readers will come across for the money. A new Cabernet Sauvignon from Montecillo and the new Oakville Farmhouse Heritage Wine both left me weak at the knees and practically drooling at the prospect of perhaps owning a few bottles.

Morgan Twain-Peterson has been joined at Bedrock by long-time friend Chris Cottrell, who formerly worked at one of New York's top wine retailers, Crush."This has taken an enormous amount of work and time pressure off me and allows even more attention to be paid to vineyards and cellar work," Twain-Peterson told me.Attention to crop loads was essential to real success in 2012, Twain-Peterson said, "especially with younger vineyards, where the vines went crazy if you let them--and high yields equal less depth and more fragile wines.But the grapes were so clean and just right that it was hard for a lot of growers to bring themselves to drop such great fruit."Full crop loads were less of an issue for the old-vine vineyards that produce fruit for Bedrock's Heritage bottlings, "which are self-regulated, yield-wise, by their extreme age."The red wines from 2012, added Twain-Peterson, "should be really good agers but they don't look like they'll ever truly close up because the tannins are so harmonious."He pointed to the aromatic complexity that many already exhibit as a good enough reason to enjoy these wines now without anxiety or guilt.