Under the Wire Sparkling Pinot Noir Alder Springs 2018

For the uninitiated, Under the Wire is the passion project of Chris Cottrell and Morgan Twain-Peterson (the mastermind behind Bedrock), and their mission is refreshingly simple: single vineyard, single vintage, single variety. No hiding behind a “house style” or massive multi-vintage blends here.

The Alder Springs Vineyard sits at the edge of the world in northern Mendocino—a rugged, high-altitude site that produces fruit with a serious backbone. For this 2018, they gave the Pinot Noir just an hour of skin contact, which imparts a stunning, pale coppery hue that feels more like a sunset than a standard rosé.

It spent roughly 48 months on the lees, giving it a persistent, creamy mousse that rounds out the vineyard’s natural, electric acidity. It’s “grower fizz” through a California lens—crystalline, focused, and deeply soulful.