2022 Bedrock Wine Company Red Wine Nervo Ranch Heritage Alexander Valley 750 ml

Chances are your average winemaker would call vines aged 40 to 60 years “old.”

And chances are Morgan Twain-Peterson wouldn’t touch ‘em. 

A staggering 80% of the vines that Twain-Peterson—the SF Chronicle’s 2014 Co-Winemaker of the Year—and his Bedrock team work with are at least 80 years old. And one sip of their vivacious, gorgeously concentrated 2022 Nervo Ranch Heritage shows that the time and treasure they devote to California’s most historic vineyard sites is well worth it.

Nervo’s vines, planted just before the turn of the 20th century, are planted into steep slopes (25–35 degrees) of decomposed shale. There are red and white varieties planted in patches throughout the site, and the Bedrock’s Nervo bottling comprises Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Negrette, Alicante Bouschet, Carignan, Grenache, Grand Noir—yep, still going—Trousseau Noir, Valdigué, Abouriou, Sémillon, Burger, Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, and more. The result is one of the most characterful wines you’ll find anywhere in the world. 

Twain-Peterson is one of the primary forces behind a growing group of winemakers dedicated to finding, restoring, and preserving historic vineyards, then crafting wines that express the sites’ profundity. His experience working with these plots and ushering their grapes into bottle has made him a believer not just in the idea that older vines yield more-concentrated grapes, but that time itself selects only the best vines for survival.