A Southern Italian dark rose! Dry but with intense fruit and a great backbone of crisp acidity. Our surprise best seller, only 2 barrels made per year, and usually selling out in the summer. This is the 2022 vintage.
 
91 points - Wine Enthusiast magazine
 
Inspired by the wonderful dark rosé wines of Abruzzo and Southern Italy, this 50/50 blend of our Barbera and Aglianico spent one day on the skins before springing to life as a pink wine. Both grapes are redolent with color and fruit naturally, but both also have very high acidity, yielding a balanced rosé with bright fuit with 6-months of barrel age while also remaining crisp and bright with gobs of fruit while fermented dry.
 
Perfect for the porch, the charcuterie plate, fall barbecues and most things in between. 
 
Southern Italian rosé wine class and podcast (Spotify)
 
Tasting notes: Modeled on the neglected Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo rosatos, we say bring on the fruit for this one. Unabashed red fruits sing with good acidity, but body is maintained with ripe fruit since both Barbera and Aglianico are gifted with ample acid, even at full ripeness. 
 
Vineyard: Barbera planted in 2004, Aglianico in 2003 as well.
 
Winemaking: This was a fun one, since in a way it is just a standard bleed-off rosé made from ripe red grapes, unlike our other two dedicated rosés. The trick was getting the Aglianico portion with a touch of tannin, bramble and spice. It also went dangerously reductive, needing lots of air to stabilize before bottling. Very un-rosé.
 
Label Image: But of the Green Lyon of Fools, this we say, that from it with a strong fire is drawn Aquafortis, in the which, the aforesaid Philosophers’ Lyon of the Mineral Stone, ought to be Elixirated, and assumes its Name. Raymundus saith, it were better, or safer, to eat the Eyes of a Basilisk, than that Gold, which is made with the Fire against Nature.
And I say also, that the things from whence the same Aquafortis is drawn is green Vitriol and Azoth: i.e., Vitriol Natural, not Artificial, viz. the droppings of Copper, called also Roman Vitriol, Roman Gold, by many of the Philosophers, from the abundance of its noble Tincture, the which Tincture must be fermented with common Gold.
 
50% Aglianico saignée
50% Barbera saignée
 
2 neutral barrels used for 6 months aging with occasional battonage
only racked for bottling,
no filtering or fining
bottled by hand 
pH 3.39
TA 7.5gm/l
13.9% abv
 
45 cases produced