Balletto Vineyards has again been voted Best Rosé in the North Bay by NorthBay biz readers. Winemaker Anthony Beckman says he’s really pleased about the community choosing the Balletto Rosé again because he always thinks in terms of the hometown crowd when he’s making it.
“We’re sort of this hometown brand,” Beckman says about the Santa Rosa vineyards at 5700 Occidental Road. “This is our sort of core base of people we want to cater to and make wine for. So it’s truly awesome.”
Beckman described their rosé as fresh and bright and fun. “It has a savory element, but it’s mostly like mineral and lime and a little bit of cherry guava on top,” he says. “It’s just this refreshing, fun wine.”
One day while he and his wife were sipping the rosé, Beckman says he asked her what she’d pair it with. “Her response was ‘a nice summer day,’” Beckman says. “And I’m like—oh yeah, it’s perfect. It sort of speaks for itself.”
Beckman does everything intentionally when making this award-winning wine. “I’ve been using the same 6 acres of pinot noir since 2011 or 2012 to make this wine,” he says. “We’re farming it from Day 1 for rosé. We’re picking it for rosé. We’re watching it for rosé. It is a block of pinot that is our rosé pinot.”
He believes in taking his time and doing things right. He says, “One thing we don’t do that happens a lot in rosé, is we don’t add anything that wasn’t picked for rosé. Because this is intentionally made and intentionally farmed we’re not taking any shortcuts.
“I think that’s the No. 1 thing we have—this consistency of site,” he says. “And No. 2 is this real focus and intention on making this rosé a super-distinct rosé. Because of that, there’s just this consistency of style, there’s a consistency of flavor.”
“I was looking at some bottle inventories the other day and we had 10,000 bottles of, I believe it was blanc, which is only about 800 cases,” Beckman says. “But I thought about those 10,000 bottles, and I was like—wow, there’s 10,000 people who are going to open up this bottle of wine and enjoy it. And it’s probably 20,000 because you open it up with another person. And so I think about all the people who get to enjoy something and have a really good time while they’re having a bottle of something that [we] have created and that, to me, is really the most exciting part.”
