An Approach to Relaxation
Vine Vale, Barossa Valley, South Australia
Carla & Richard Rza Betts
While Richard was catching lizards & crashing bikes in the desert, Carla was wrangling horses & waves in California. Who knew they’d someday collide in a flurry of light, rivaling Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as the finest accomplices to roam the land?
Their paths took them separately through all sorts of twists & turns; Carla to NYU for acting & Richard nearly became an attorney (that would have been very bad.) Anyways, eventually they figured out that you can have a damn fine time (& make a living!) throwing a good party, thus, they found their way to wine. Carla served the stuff up at some tony joints in NYC for a while, while Richard found the dearth of oxygen & excess of disposable income in Aspen more suitable to his wine service.
Then, on one hot, muddy & muggy afternoon they found themselves in the same park at the same time &, well, Carla was wearing this hot pink tank top & pouring excessive quantities of sherry, & that was it. Boom. They were on their way to the sun.
After banging around the solar system for a while they realized they needed gas money or at least a break on the wine, so they asked themselves ‘how do we make our own supply from which to get high?’ Whelp, turns out they both love the same wines & Richard had a little experience making this & that, so they headed to Australia to make some dee-lish hooch, & that’s what An Approach to Relaxation is all about.
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Two Americans, living in Amsterdam and making wine in Australia - An Approach To Relaxation is a joint project between husband and wife team Richard (former-Master Sommelier) and Carla Rza Betts (formerly of The Spotted Pig, The Breslin and The John Dory Oyster Bar in NYC.)
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The Rza block is old vine, own-rooted, dry-farmed vineyard situated in the heart of Vine Vale, the small easter pocket of the Barossa Valley in South Australia.
While the rest of the Barossa has predominantly heavier red clay soils, Vine Vale is unique in its significant deposit of fine sandy soil. The sand comes from weathered granite and quartzite deposits from the Barossa Ranges and Eden Valley.
Evening winds called the Vine Vale Nurse are nearly as important as the sandy because they create a big diurnal shift cooling the vineyards at night, preserving acidity and freshness.
Sandy soils don’t give much color to wine but instead provide high toned aromatics with a silky texture and wine that’s light on its feet - which is why Richard and Carla often make a warm climate Pinot Noir analogy to Grenache grown on sand.
The Rza Block, located in the center of Vine Vale, measures 16.5 acres (6,7 ha). The majority of the vineyard are very old vines (estimated to be planted around the end of the 1800s) which have outgrown their trellising reverting back to being bush vines. Then there are a few rows of younger vines planted from cuttings in 1992. In 2019 the remaining 4 acres were planted with bush vine rootlets.
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The vines are dry farmed, head-trained and grow on their own roots. Organic, nothing is ever sprayed or applied in the vineyard and the vines grow totally unfettered apart from the single yearly pruning.
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Harvest is a fairly simple, pick the grapes & haul them across the country road to the winery where they ferment, partially whole-cluster, in fermenters that are open to the sun rays, moon beams, bees - all of it. A pass through the old basket press & then the wine hangs out in only old French oak barrels. In keeping with the belief that it's not what you wear, it's how you wear it, we believe the 'old' barrels give the wine time to find itself, preserve the purity of soil & grape, & set itself up for longevity.
Wines
Sucette
Richard and Carla believe that the prettiest of all Grenache comes from old vines grown in sandy soils. They have come to regard it as the well-endowed, warm climate analogy of Pinot Noir. They combed Spain, California, France & Sardinia. Apart from France (home the best of them all, Chateau Rayas) the most promising sandy soil they've found is in the Vine Vale portion of the Barossa, South Australia. So, for Sucette they've tapped one of the finest vineyards in Vine Vale. The vines are 90+ years old & completely wild. Nothing (literally nothing) is ever sprayed or applied in the vineyard and the vines grow totally unfettered apart from the single yearly pruning.
Nichon
Nichon is a blend of 80% Semillon (60 years old) and 20% Sauvignon Blanc (25 years old). Both come from a sandy, own-rooted vineyard in the cool, Eastern area of the Barossa Valley known as the Vine Vale.
The interest here was to see what old Semillon can do after a few years in bottle: super nutty, honeyed, herbal notes on the nose paired with an insanely textural palate. (Think Haut Brion Blanc, Kalin Cellars, Chateau Musar and Fiorano.) The wine is basket pressed and barrel fermented, with blocked malo to retain that juicy acid. Nichon spends 12 months in second-use French oak, and is bottled unfined and unfiltered.