Rosenblum Cellars Chenin Blanc/Viognier

In theory each bottle in a wine tasting lineup should be better than the one before.  In theory.  So when our vendor went through the lineup starting with three somewhat similar white blends followed by three reds, we were struck by how good that very first wine was.  By the way, in most wine tastings the price of the wines usually ascends so if that first inexpensive bottle is memorable, to our way of thinking, it is a find indeed.

Rosenblum Cellars was established in 1978 in Alameda, California maybe five miles from where we were living at the time.  Had we known we would be writing this now we could've been doing our spade work back then but it took us a few years to find our career path.  When we did land in the wine industry permanently, Rosenblum was still there.

Actually Kent Rosenblum hit the ground running when he started his operation.  Zinfandel was his thing back then and finding superior fruit in vineyards untapped by the larger industry players was his forte.  Rasmussen befriended these growers, struck a deal with each and then bottled single vineyard Zinfandels with the individual vineyard owner's name on each label.  At the time Rasmussen was crowned "The King of Zins."

Charlie Tsegeletos is the current Rosenblum winemaker and he was nice enough to educate me on the Chenin/Viognier.  The blend is 85% Chenin and 15% Viognier and the fruit is sourced from two estate vineyards in the greater Lodi region.  The wine shows bright citrus, pineapple and honey flavors with the Chenin being responsible for most of the light crispness and fresh fruit flavors.  The Viognier lends body and apricot flavor to the blend.  The wine is cold fermented in stainless steel and sees no oak or malolactic fermentation.