Desire Lines Red Wine, Evangelho Vineyard (Sustainable, following low intervention practices)
Desire Lines is the project of Cody and Emily Rasmussen, who made California their home in 2011, three months after graduating college and two months after getting married. Cody began his life in wine in 2013 working for Morgan Twain-Peterson’s Bedrock Winery. Bringing zero wine experience with him but an insatiable appetite for learning, Cody quickly became Bedrock’s Assistant Winemaker. Cody and Emily made the first wine of their very own in 2014, and so began Desire Lines Wine Co. With his close ties to Morgan, Cody makes all of his Desire Lines Wine Co. wines at the Bedrock winery.
Approximately halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento, you’ll find the Evangelho vineyard sitting unassumingly amidst mixed farmland and PG&E power lines, its ancient, ungrafted, dry-farmed vines embedded in sandy soil at the intersection of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers.
Portuguese settlers planted these vines 130 years ago; it is one of the last ungrafted vineyards in California, among the oldest, and the only one left in this area. You cannot recreate or mimic sites like this – there are only perhaps two or three vineyards like this left in the U.S.A. and once they’re gone, they’re gone!
Desire Lines’ 2018 Evangelho Vineyard Red is a blend of 90% Carignan and 10% Mourvèdre, showing delicate, lifted aromas of bing cherry, candied floral notes, blood orange, and potpourri. Decant it for at least two hours to release its full bouquet. Elegant, understated, and no less than a piece of California vineyard history. Absolutely incredible.
Winery Notes: “Evangelho Red Wine is a blend of roughly 95% Carignan and 5% Mourvèdre. The wine was fermented with 30% whole cluster under a submerged cap and aged for ten months in neutral 400L barrels. The carignan from Evangelho gives a juicy wine that smells of flowers and red fruits, with a soft tannin profile (a product of the sandy soils) and vibrant acidity. The inclusion of cluster adds spice to the nose, while the small portion of carbonic maceration and Mourvèdre add flesh to the palate. The winemaking style is inspired by our love for the great cru Beaujolais of France (and in our book, that’s Clos de la Roilette’s Cuvée Tardive and the old-vine single parcels of Château Thivin): wines that are a joy to drink while young and age gracefully as well.”
San Francisco Chronicle: “Like many wines from this vineyard, Desire Lines’ 2019 Evangelho red is driven by fresh, bright fruit flavors — pomegranate and raspberry shine through here. The extreme winds at the vineyard, coming off the nearby San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, are largely responsible for that profile. Cedar and bitter, spicy star anise fill out a frame that’s girded by velvety tannins. It’s not a small wine; this would delight a lover of big Zinfandels. But it’s tightly focused, and the 2019 is amazingly approachable at this youthful stage.”