Bedrock vintner's 'hands-off' approach

<p>Morgan Twain Peterson was a precocious child, who at 5 years old could distinguish between a merlot and a zinfandel.</p><p>Today, the 28-year-old Twain Peterson is the winemaker at Bedrock Wine Company in Sonoma, a joint venture with his father, Joel Peterson, the pioneering vintner who co-founded Sonoma's Ravenswood Winery in 1976.</p><p>"I think I absorbed via a sort of cosmic osmosis the love, the hard work and ultimate satisfaction of hand-crafting wines from my father," said Twain Peterson, who literally grew up at his father's winery. "That was certainly important, but beyond anything wine related, it was the beginning of the relationship I have with my dad, who is my closest friend in life."</p><p>Twain Peterson took some time out recently from his cellar duties to talk about his "hands-off" philosophy as a second-generation Sonoma County vintner.</p><p>Q: You are on the cusp of earning the Master of Wine title, which fewer than 30 Americans hold. How is that process affecting your winemaking?</p><p>A: Pursuing (it) has done a number of incredible things. It forces one to taste globally. It makes you take into account the macro-aspects of wine from the finances, to the oenology, to viticulture, to the history and culture of it, all things which get forgotten in the day-to-day of running a winery. . . . It gave me many more questions to ask while I was abroad making wine in Australia and France. My dissertation is on old-vine California field blends. If I say more you will start to lose readership.</p><p>Q: Why do you describe your winemaking as "cro-magnum" (a play on Cro-Magnon, one of our early human ancestors)?</p><p>A: Because I fundamentally believe that rudimentary winemaking, that which is hands-off, preserves the inherent quality of a vineyard and its wine the most. I hand-pitchfork the fruit into a gentle destemmer, everything is manually punched-down, only native yeasts are used, and almost all of the wines are manually basket-pressed. These are techniques used since the dawn of winemaking and they are just as great now as they were then. Perhaps, rather than cro-magnum it could be called "perfectionist laissez-faire."</p><p>Q: You make a killer dry rosé. Why do you fashion your rosés in the French (Bandol and Provence) model?</p><p>A: If you are going to make wine, any type of wine, there is no point in doing it if it is not going to be the best, or at the very least interesting. I love good rosé, not just Bandol, but the great ones from Cotat in Sancerre made from pinot . . . and even the funky aged ones from Lopez de Heredia in Spain. It just happens that we are lucky enough to have a block of 120-year-old mourvedre, the great grape of Bandol, and I thought it could make a truly distinct, great rosé, that might whisper a few of the secrets encased in bottles of Tempier, Pibarnon, Gros'Noré and other great Bandol. It is nice that people really appreciate dry, lower-alcohol, food-friendly rosé in a way that I think they probably did not a few years ago.</p><p>Q: Your winemaking theory is "Diversity is the Spice of Life." How does that play into producing rosé and your other varietals?</p><p>A: Because it is! Wine is a lot more fun to consume and to make when you get to work with all of the potential elements given to us here in the land of milk and honey. My wines range from low-alcohol, crisp, rosé to barrel-fermented graves blanc blends from 117-year-old semillon, to century old-vine California field blends replete with spice and fruit, to savory syrah's from cooler and warmer sources, to cabernet from Sonoma Valley aged in 100 percent new oak.</p><p>It is just amazing that I can do that and not have to drive more than an hour to any of my vineyards, and there is still more to play with! Wine is like anything else, the more diverse the experience, the more you'll learn and the more you will take away. That I have been given a chance to embark on the winemaking journey (while) young only means I have more to look forward to as the years pass by.</p><p>Staff Writer Peg Melnik can be reached at 521-5310 or at peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com.</p>