Sea Urchin, a Sparkling Rosé of Pinot Noir

Let’s pop a red cap and get into the bottle with CARBONISTE Winemakers, Dan and Jacqueline Person. These questions go deeper and get bubbly as they share more about CARBONISTE, winemaking, and wine drinking.

Can you tell us more about the Sea Urchin?

Every week we get questions from our sparkling wine fans about what we love about sparkling wine and how we make it. This week we dove into a bottle of our favorite sparkling rosé, the Sea Urchin, and shared more about why we love this wine, and why rosé will never go out of style.

Jacqueline: We’re drinking the Urchin?

Dan: Ya.

Jacqueline: How do you feel about it?

Dan: I feel good about it.

Jacqueline: Haha. Ok.

Dan: Ya. Ya. It’s Pinot noir with a little Chardonnay. It’s made in San Benito, CA.

Jacqueline: Where is that?

Dan: Down south.

Jacqueline: How far south?

Dan: About 5 or 6 hours.

Jacqueline: From here?

Dan: Ya. You go to Santa Cruz and you keep going. It’s a little past Monterey.

We fermented in barrel. Native yeast. Native malolactic. In 2022 we kept it in barrel a little longer to try and create some more mature complexity. Then bottled it up. Short tirage. Keeping it fresh. We didn’t want it to be yeasty, but we wanted it to be yummy. Keeping some of that fruit primary. Right now it’s showing a lot of really nice guava and strawberry.

Jacqueline: It’s really pretty right now.

Dan: Super tasty at the moment. We’re crushing it.

Jacqueline: You want to see the bottle?

Dan: It’s right there.

Jacqueline: What is that?

Dan: It’s a Sea Urchin.

Jacqueline: Oh. It’s a sea urchin.

Cheers!

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