Leave it to the clever winemaking team at Saddleback to flush out a distinctive varietal to once again win at rosé. With a stone fruit fragrance and a crisp, lilting lime-rosewater, lychee and greystone palate, this is a heat-squashing blush wine you'll have packed on ice over and over.

Aleatico Rosé is a re-visit by Nils, who made this wine originally for Saddleback in 2013 to a quick sellout. The varietal, sourced out of the Russian River Valley in Sonoma, is better known in Italy as a sweet dessert wine, when it is picked and dried to concentrate flavor, then traditionally served with a dry fruitcake. None of that treacle here: with limited skin contact, our bright rosé is the result of limited skin-contact in crushing freshly harvested, single-vineyard fruit.

2018 : 112 cases made