17 Aug Please The Palate Wine of the Week: Adroît 2020 Colombard/Barbera Petillant-Naturel Rosé, Stanislaus County

Colombard, the offspring of Chenin Blanc and Gouais Blanc, is a white French wine grape that is traditionally used in Cognac and Armagnac. Barbera, on the other hand, is an Italian red wine grape known for its full body, low tannins and high acidity. Put the two grapes together, add some bubbles, and you get the adroît 2020 Colombard/Barbera Petillant-Naturel Rosé, the Please The Palate wine of the week. adroît is one of three brands produced by Master Sommelier and winemaker Chris Miller. His other two labels are Seabold Cellars, which focuses on cool-climate organic and sustainable vineyards to produce wines that reflect where they come from, and BOLD Wine Co which focuses on producing easily accessible, affordable, sustainably-grown wines from the Monterey Peninsula. The adroît label is one of experimentation. Chris likes to play with different blends and the adroît wines are the successful experiments, such as the Colombard/Barbera Pet Nat. Chris started making sparkling wine as an experiment, as an homage to a sommelier he was dating at the time. While the relationship did not end well, his sparkling wines have turned out quite well! For the Pet Nat, the Colombard and Barbera come from the same vineyard. Barbera has naturally high acidity and is a late ripener. The Barbera is picked early, when the Colombard is ripe, and while the fruit is restrained, it still has lots of acidity. The grapes are then co-fermented. Chris keeps the wine on the lees for a long time, resulting in a hybrid of traditional method and petillant-naturel. The wine is bottled, re-ferments, is riddled, and disgorged. The wine is then topped off with some of the Colombard/Barbera still wine. The resulting sparkling wine is only 2-3 atmospheres of pressure so the bottle is topped with a cap. A cloudy pink color, the pét-nat has pretty red berry, red grapefruit nose. The wine is refreshing with saline notes and light effervescence. In some ways, this wine has a Lambrusco-esque vibe. The adroît 2020 Colombard/Barbera Petillant-Naturel Rosé ($36) is just a very yummy, drinkable wine.