Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Doug always makes a light-colored rosé and his 2016 Riviera Rosé gives up pretty, classy notes of strawberries, citrus blossom and hints of salty minerality. Clean, impeccably balanced and classically dry on the palate, it's a terrific rose that's going to shine over the coming summer months.
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Wine Enthusiast
Light and almost effervescent in the glass, this popular Grenache-based pink from Doug Margerum offers yeasty, Champagne-like aromas, soft lemon-peel scents and wet slate minerality. The palate's tingling acidity delivers chalky lime and cotton candy flavors, bound together with compelling tension.
Whether it’s playful and fun or savory and serious, most rosé today is not your grandmother’s White Zinfandel, though that category remains strong. Pink wine has recently become quite trendy, and this time around it’s commonly quite dry. Since the pigment in red wines comes from keeping fermenting juice in contact with the grape skins for an extended period, it follows that a pink wine can be made using just a brief period of skin contact—usually just a couple of days. The resulting color depends on grape variety and winemaking style, ranging from pale salmon to deep magenta.
The largest and perhaps most varied of California’s wine-growing regions, the Central Coast produces a good majority of the state's wine. This vast California wine district stretches from San Francisco all the way to Santa Barbara along the coast, and reaches inland nearly all the way to the Central Valley.
Encompassing an extremely diverse array of climates, soil types and wine styles, it contains many smaller sub-AVAs, including San Francisco Bay, Monterey, the Santa Cruz Mountains, Paso Robles, Edna Valley, Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Maria Valley.
While the Central Coast California wine region could probably support almost any major grape varietiy, it is famous for a few Central Coast reds and whites. Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel are among the major ones. The Central Coast is home to many of the state's small, artisanal wineries crafting unique, high-quality wines, as well as larger producers also making exceptional wines.