California Wine Tasting
Friday, June 6th
Featuring the refreshing, juicy, energetic wines of Broc Cellars!
Domaine South
Call 256-759-9952 to Reserve
California Wine Tasting
Featuring Broc Cellars
special guest, Allaina Nielsen
Domaine South
Friday, June 6th, 2025
4pm - 6pm
$20
256-759-9952 to Reserve
Broc Cellars is a Berkeley-based winery that makes refreshing and approachable wines for everyday drinking. Established in 2002 by owner and winemaker Chris Brockway, we use native fermentations and organically-grown grapes. Broc wines are made with the intention to lift you up, never weigh you down.
The Wines
2023 Broc Cellars `Love` Sparkling Chenin Blanc, Mendocino, California $33.99
Tasting Notes: Bartlett pear, meyer lemon, white flower
Making sparkling wine is always a fun adventure. There’s something new to discover and love about each vintage. This year’s bubbles feel concentrated and zippy while still retaining a soft and thirst-quenching crispness. The Love Sparkling is made to be an everyday sparkling wine that’s good for both the spur-of-the-moment dinners, however it still shines for any special occasions. The Chenin Blanc grapes arrived from Shell Creek Vineyard on an August morning. After a few hours on the skins, the grapes were directly pressed into stainless steel tank to naturally ferment. We added Chenin Blanc must and transferred the wine into pressurized tanks while still slightly sweet to finish fermentation. Hand-bottled. No disgorging or dosage and light sulphur at bottling.
VARIETIES: 95% Chenin Blanc | 5% Orange Muscat
VINEYARD: Shell Creek and Hartwick Vineyards
2023 Broc Cellars `Love` White, Mendocino, California $24.99
Tasting Notes: Green Melon, Fresh Kiwi, River Rock
Love White is that easy-drinking, high quality white that’s always there when the moment arises. The varieties in our Rhône inspired blend have evolved over the years, but remain rooted in a pleasant complexity, light aromatics and uplifting body. This vintage is made up of mostly Picpoul and Vermentino. To complete the blend we added a little Clairette, Grenache Blanc and Chenin Blanc which added inviting aromatics, pleasant acidity and balance. Another vintage of Love White we can’t get enough of.
All white grapes receive a light footstomp on arrival at the winery. It’s an important step for two reasons: We like the complexity the short skin contact gives the wine and, more functionally, treading breaks up the clusters to better fit everything into the press. After a gentle press, the wine goes into mostly neutral barrique with a small fraction into stainless steel tank where it’s fermented and aged.
FUN FACT: Vermentino isn’t just an Italian grape. A little is also grown in France where it’s known as Rolle.
VARIETIES: 50% Picpoul | 21% Vermentino | 14% Clairette | 12% Grenache Blanc | 3% Chenin Blanc
FARMING: Certified Organic
2023 Broc Cellars Amore Bianco, Mendocino, California $32.99
Tasting Notes: Intriguing medley of green mango, jackfruit, and lychee, enriched by notes of honeycomb, honeydew, and a hint of green tea.
The Bianco bursts with lychee, orange stone fruits and constantly evolves in the glass. Our first vintage was 100% Tocai Fruilano, later adding Trebbiano and Ribolla Gialla to showcase the lively side of an Italian skin contact wine with grapes all grown at Fox Hill Vineyard. We kept the Trebbiano off the skins this year and instead directly pressed it to ferment in stainless steel before aging in neutral oak barrique. The Friulano and Ribolla Gialla co-fermented together on their skins. Two-thirds of the wine was pressed into concrete tank to age. The remaining into sandstone jarres. The sandstone jarre gives the wine that luminous amber color and subtle structure from the tannins. We fall more in love with what the sandstone jarres bring to the wine each year. It’s a great example of the role vessels can play in bringing a wine to life. Friendly with food or even a little cellar time.
FUN FACT: Our first vintage was 100% Tocai Fruilano.
VARIETIES: 50% Ribolla Gialla, 40% Tocai Friulano, 10% Trebbiano
LOCATION: Fox Hill Vineyard - Mendocino
FARMING PRACTICES: CCOF Certified Organic
2022 Broc Cellars `Love Red`, Mendocino, California 22.99
Our Love Red is the everyday, anytime California red wine we love to make as a showcase of old heritage vines that produce amazing fruit. This year’s Love Red is more dynamic than in past vintages, with a subtle touch of tannin and pleasant structure to pair with food, while remaining light and fresh. The grapes were harvested early to highlight the fruit and preserve their natural acidity. The Carignan and Valdiguié were naturally fermented as a mix of partially destemmed and whole cluster berries and went through partial carbonic maceration in stainless steel tank. All aged in a mix of neutral French oak barrique and stainless steel.
FUN FACT: Love Red keeps many old vines planted in California, having a home every year at Broc in this blend.
VARIETIES: 50% Carignan | 30% Syrah | 10% Valdiguié | 5% Mourvedre | 5% Grenache
2024 Broc Cellars `Love` Rose, Mendocino, California $24.99
Tasting Notes: Fresh-picked strawberries & savory herbs on the nose. Watermelon aqua fresca, dried thyme, strawberry smash & sea salt on the palate.
This vintage is about abundance: From the expansion of grape varieties featured to the flavors and textures up for exploration in the glass. The 2023 is mostly Valdiguié and Carignan with Zinfandel, Grenache Noir and Barbera – several new varieties to the Love Rosé blend.
We foot stomped the grapes, which remained on the skins and stems for up to 24 hours. All varieties, excluding the Grenache, were gently pressed into stainless steel tank to naturally ferment. The Grenache underwent carbonic maceration before it was pressed, fermented and aged in concrete tank. Sulphur was not added during fermentation and aging. Once fermented to dry, the wine aged on the lees for four months. All were blended at bottling with a small amount of sulphur addition. Each variety brings a unique quality to the wine - acidity from the Valdiguié, spice from the Zinfandel, texture from the Carignan, herbal notes from the Grenache Noir and salinity from the Barbera.
VARIETIES: 66% Valdiguié | 18% Carignan | 7% Zinfandel | 5% Grenache Noir | 4% Barbera
VINEYARD: Shell Creek, Ricetti, Arrowhead Mountain, Corteza & Fox Hill Vineyard
2022 Broc Cellars Amore Rosso, Mendocino, California $32.99
Our goal with Amore Rosso is to have fun - making wine from the many Italian varieties grown at Fox Hill. We picked the red grapes that were ready to be harvested at the same time. The intention was to make a delicious table wine, capturing the feel of an old school classic field blend. This wine has darker, vibrant fruit with some structure while still being bright and fresh. It also has depth and complexity which pairs so well with food. Barbera, Dolcetto and Sangiovese grapes co-fermented together in stainless open top fermenters with 20% of the grapes left as whole clusters and the rest of the grapes destemmed. After two weeks of fermentation, we pressed and aged the wine in neutral French oak barrels. The Negro Amaro was made as a rosé – foot stomped and left on the skins for 24 hours, then pressed and fermented in neutral French oak barrels. All wine aged for 10 months in barrel, then blended before bottling to give you the Broc pizza wine!
All Broc Cellar wines are made using spontaneous fermentation, which means only native yeasts and bacteria that exist on the grapes are used to make wine. We don’t add anything – this includes nutrients, yeast, bacteria, enzymes, tannins or other popular fermentation agents. Sulphur is a naturally occurring element in all wine, the amount found can vary. Sulphur is never added during fermentation and aging. We add little to no S02 at bottling, depending on the wine, year and style.