San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Wine of the Week
Rasmussen family’s big, fruity field blend.
Welcome to Wine of the Week, a new series in which Chronicle wine critic Esther Mobley recommends a delicious bottle that you should be drinking right now. Last week, she highlighted a $ 25 Sonoma Cabernet Sauvignon. Check online for a new installment every Wednesday, www. sfchronicle. com/ food.
To this day, one of the weirdest looking California vineyards I’ve ever walked through is the Evangelho Vineyard in Antioch, deep into the East Bay suburbs. The sandy soil here resembles beach dunes, dotted with plants that look like tiny overgrown bushes that are actually 120yearold grapevines. Strangest of all, PG& E power lines tower over the vineyard, and Amtrak tracks border it. The place looks more industrial than agricultural.
The history of the Evangelho Vineyard is just as intriguing as its appearance, and it was the subject of a story I wrote a few years ago.
( Read it!) Since then, Sonoma Zinfandel powerhouse Bedrock Wine Co. has bought the property from longtime steward Frank Evangelho, and Evangelho himself has died. But the vines at this extraordinary site continue to produce memorable and distinctive wines.
One of those memorable wines comes from Desire Lines Wine Co., a young label from Cody and Emily Rasmussen, a pair of highschool sweethearts who moved to Sonoma from Iowa in 2011 to forge wine industry careers. They make a field blend from a section of the vineyard that’s mostly composed of Carignan grapes, interplanted with the occasional Mourvedre vine — hardy red grapes that were frequently planted alongside Zinfandel, Petite Sirah and other varieties in 19th century vineyards. ( In this particular section of Evangelho, there are also a few stray vines of Palomino, the white grape that’s predominantly used for Sherry.)
Like many wines from this vineyard, Desire Lines’ 2019 Evangelho red is driven by fresh, bright fruit flavors — pomegranate and raspberry shine through here. The extreme winds at the vineyard, coming off the nearby San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, are largely responsible for that profile. Cedar and bitter, spicy star anise fill out a frame that’s girded by velvety tannins. It’s not a small wine; this would delight a lover of big Zinfandels. But it’s tightly focused, and the 2019 is amazingly approachable at this youthful stage.
Cody Rasmussen is also the assistant winemaker at Bedrock, and so it isn’t surprising that he shares some of his employer’s sensibilities, seeking out vineyards with quirky, onlyinCalifornia histories like Shake Ridge, Cole Ranch and Griffin’s Lair. The wines are worth seeking out.
The 2019 Evangelho red is available at Vintage Berkeley and San Francisco Wine Trading Co.