If it ain't Broc, fix it.

We first came across the wines of Broc Cellars at Chambers Street Wines on New York - a recommendation in itself. That was in 2014. Since then, Broc Cellars wines have become quite widely available including in the UK where Robersons are prominent so we are now dealing with a marque of international repute.

Winery on the left, cellar door on the right

However, note the name: Broc Cellars. Yes, there is no estate or vineyard. Grapes are sourced from all over California and vinified at this building in downtown Berkeley. This kind of operation is quite familiar by now with other prominent practitioners such as Birichino making some of the best and most reliable wines in the state.

Chris Brockway

Chris Brockway is the owner and winemaker. We find every aspect of his operation cute as well as admirable including the name which even gives rise to a playful label featuring a badger. His route to Broc Cellars began in Omaha where he was born and took in a Philosophy degree from Nebraska University. There followed a spell making TV promotions in LA and then finally a period studying winemaking and enology at the University of California at Davis and Cal State University at Fresno.

A spell working at a commercial wine producer taught him 'how not to do everything'. He relates how he became an expert in commercial yeasts and additives - none of which are used in his winemaking at Broc Cellars.

He started making small batches of wine for himself and his activity just seems to have grown from there wich is immensely impressive.

 The Broc Cellars website puts their philosophy perfectly:

At Broc Cellars, all of our wines are made using spontaneous fermentation, a process that means we only use native yeasts and bacteria that exist on the grapes in order to make wine. This is unlike many of the wines you will see in grocery stores or on wine shop shelves and in restaurants. We don’t add anything – this includes nutrients, yeast, bacteria, enzymes, tannins or other popular fermentation agents. Sulphur is a naturally occurring element in all wine, the amount found can vary. We add little to no S02, depending on the wine and style.

“Our goal in making wine is to bring out the natural expression of the grape. We decide on a wine by wine basis how we want to do that. We have more freedom now to make the choice not to add Sulphur. There is a bigger market for us to go in the direction we want to go. To counter that we are doing more to insure our vineyards are using the farming practices we support. We’re also committed to detailing exactly what decisions we make during the course of our winemaking process.” – Chris Brockway.

Over the past few years as the natural wine market has evolved we have been working with our partner vineyards on a plan to insure by 2019 over 95% of the grapes that we work with will be grown without using synthetic pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, or fertilizers. The decision to keep sourcing from the 5% of vineyards that have some exposure to these things is complicated and has a lot to do with how much we value the beauty of the fruit, the varieties that come from these vineyards, and the unique challenges of farming the areas where those grapes are grown. We have detailed any exposure in the specific wine’s notes.

So how about the wines? We find them admirable for their diversity and integrity. They belong very much to the new Californian 7 - percenters. No fruit bombs or brooding monsters but a lightness of touch and fidelity to grape variety. These include

Chardonnay

Chenin Blanc

Chenin Blanc

Grenache Gris

Picpoul

The first bottle we opened on arriving home. We couldn't wait to find out what a Californian version of this grape might taste like. Interestingly, Broc's Picpoul tastes more like a hard core natural wine than his others. Liking natural wine as we do, that was no bad thing - just an unexpected one.

Rousanne

Tocai Friulano

Cabernet Franc

Carignan

Counoise

One doesn't fing Counoise as a monocepage in France. When we asked once why not we were told 'on ne s'amuse pas de cette facon.' Ppreviously we had found a Counoise in California by Kenneth Volk. That proved to be pleasantly fleshy with a character of its own and this one was along similar lines. We don't envisage going on a Counoise hunt any time soon but it was nice to be able to taste it again.

Grenache

Lovely colour on this light-touch Lagrein

Lagrein

Soon after our trip to California we found ourselves in Austria where we tried a local Lagrein. By comparison the Broc version seemed to be so much more faithful to the grape's character. As you can see it was light both in colour and in alcohol (12.5%) and we infinitely preferred this style to the heavy over-extracted one.

Mission

Mission is Pais is Criolla is Listan Prieto as everyone knows. Listan Prieto is found in the Canary Islands. As the first European grape to be planted in the New World (in the second half of the 18th century), should one suppose that Listan Prieto vines or cuttings were picked up on the journey only because the Canaries were the last landfall before crossing the ocean? In any case, we are looking forward to Broc's Mission if only to convince us that this is a good variety after all.

Nero d'Avola 

Pinot Noir

Sangiovese

Syrah 

Trousseau

Valdiguie


There is moreof the relatively obscure Valdiguie in California than one might imagine. That seems to be down to people confusing it with Gamay originally. A bit like Carmenere in Chile or Savagnin in Australia.

Zinfandel

As well as this straight Zin, Broc makes a White Zinfandel!

From these varieties they make over 75 different wines. Styles include single variety wines, whites, roses, reds, blends, pet nats and sparkling often from surprising varieties such as Cabernet Franc and even what they call Mockvin - a take on the Macvin of the Jura.

Quantities are very small, often no more than 300 bottles. Alcohol levels are modest and so is the pricing if you buy from the cellar door as we did. By the time Broc wines reach the UK they are rather more expensive of course.

The day of our pilgrimage, there were plenty of other fans of Broc wines tasting and buying. Everything about the operation is cool. We especially like the distinctive labels all by Marta Johansen.

We were really taken by these wines and rate Broc Cellars up there with Forlorn Hope which is saying something.