Martha Stoumen - Benson Ranch Nero d'Avola Rosato 2022 750ml

Martha Stoumen Wines was founded upon the desire to recapture a farming and winemaking culture that has all but faded away: a winemaking culture of patience. After 8 years apprenticing around the world, Martha set out as a self-funded, first generation winemaker to answer the question, “What does California taste like?” In our hot little corner of Northern California, Mediterranean grapes thrive and healthy vineyards allow us to create joyful balanced wines. Our wines are made from unexpected varietals and offer new takes on California classics. We do things the right way even if it's not the easy or cool way. Of the nearly two dozen wines we make every year, blends and flavors change but our desire to share the simple pleasures of natural wine remains the same. When Martha founded the company in 2014, she started by exploring warm and breezy regions that allow for natural farming. She was thrilled to find a handful of dedicated farmers, primarily growing Mediterranean grapes in the Ukiah area of Mendocino County, Contra Costa County and Suisun Valley. She has been making wine from their fruit and laughing with them ever since. Martha also found two traditionally planted, head trained, dry farmed vineyards that she now leases, allowing us to farm 25% of our production. We craft our wines in Sebastopol, CA in a winery we share with friends. Our main goal is to create complex, delicious wines, and, simple as it sounds, the best way to do this is by using complex, delicious grapes. Healthy grapes contain every ingredient necessary to make wine. Each berry contains sugar and acid in the pith, tannin in the skin and stems, and a rich bloom of yeast and bacteria on the clusters. We embrace the idea that wine is an agricultural product, and no two wines should taste the same. Instead of using a single commercial yeast species, we embrace native fermentations and the many flavors a diversity of microbes bring to our wines.

Vino di una notte... This translates to ‘one night wine’ and refers to the technique of crushing grapes and leaving them to macerate on skins (and in our case, stems) in their own juice overnight, adding color, texture, and complexity. I love using this technique with our Nero d’Avola because it produces a wine that falls between rosé and a red wine—zippy and bright like a rosé but textured and robust like a red wine. New for 2022, we co-fermented our youngest dry-farmed Nero d’Avola vines at Bricarelli Ranch with the adjacent rows of Negroamaro body and a stronger wild strawberry core to a perennial favorite cuvée.

only 411 cases produced.

Concentration. The high skin to juice ratio from the dry-farmed vines at Bricarelli Ranch bring it like no other grape. The resulting wine strikes the senses with aromas of mineral earth and electric strawberry. You’re ready for lift off. Slightly flinty aromas infuse the air around you with an electric charge.

region: Mendocino, CA, USA

varietal: Nero d'Avola with 10% Negroamaro

style: dry rose

farming/cellar: 

pairing Tantalize your taste buds with a little spice: chili peanuts, crispy pork belly, or massaman curry.