Haliotide Wines Topotero Vineyard Extra Brut Rose SLO Coast 2021

Thoughtfulness and care prevail with Haliotide Wines, a tiny sparkling wine brand crafting single-vineyard wines on the Central Coast of California. Each bottle produced passes through the hands of proprietors Nicole Bertotti Pope and Lucas Pope, and their labor of love extends from hand-harvesting through production to hand-labeling. This exceptional level of consideration is a key factor in their style and the focus on working with small, family-owned vineyards close to the Pacific Ocean. Haliotide produces micro lots of wine for each vintage, and ACME has been on their tails for a club placement for a couple of vintages now. We are so pleased to finally share their wines with our Pulse members and present the 2021 Extra Brut Rosé from Topotero Vineyard.

Nicole and Lucas are a wine power couple, with Nicole leading winemaking and Lucas handling vineyard relations for Haliotide, which they established in 2016 while working together at Stolo Wines. Nicole brings expertise from her time at Carneros sparkling heavy-hitter Domaine Carneros and her decade of experience as the winemaker for Stolo Vineyards, where they specialize in cool-climate wines a short 3 miles from the Pacific. She was named SF Chronicle's 2019 Winemaker to Watch and, in 2021, committed full-time to Haliotide Wines. While working as Ranch Manager for Stolo Vineyards in 2017, Lucas was honored as a 40 under 40 Tastemaker by Wine Enthusiast. He now works as Director of Vineyard Operations for Coastal Vineyard Services and handles the farming and sourcing of boutique vineyards for the Haliotide Wines.

Topotero Vineyard lies within one of California's newest crowned sub-AVAs, SLO Coast. Certified in 2022, the SLO Coast sub-AVA includes almost 4,000 acres of planted vines in the over 400,000 acres it spans. The region extends from San Simeon in the North to just south of Arroyo Grande and Pismo Beach, with the average vineyard distance from the coast being only 5.2 miles away. Topotero is even closer in proximity to the Pacific Ocean, just a mere 1.5 miles away. This closeness affords the vineyard a long and cool growing season with foggy mornings, and in fact, it's the coolest growing season of any California region. Combined with the complex soil makeup, including volcanic, marine, and wind deposits, it makes for exceptional grape-growing conditions.

The 20-plus-year-old Pinot Noir vines for Nicole and Lucas' brut rosé are clones 2A and 113. The 2A clone provides intensity of flavor while the 113 leans towards nuance and aromatics. Upon hand-harvest, Nicole and Lucas foot-tread the grapes, leaving them to cold-soak on the skins and gently deepen the color. The still wine was fermented and aged in a combination of stainless steel and neutral oak barrels for nine months before bottling by hand. During the 30 months "en tirage" (aging on the lees), Nicole and Lucas hand-riddled every bottle and at the end, disgorged by hand and added a dosage of 5 g/L. They describe the rosé as "pale pink in color with a fine mousse. Aromas of wild strawberry, pink grapefruit, and white jasmine. Bright acidity with flavors of blood orange, crisp white nectarine, tart cherry, and a wet stone minerality." Only 120 cases produced!