Andis Mourvedre 2013
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Winemaker Notes
Pairs well with baked risotto with venison and sausage and mushrooms.
Opened in November of 2010, Andis Wines brings a modern and fresh approach to Amador County's winemaking region. Their focus: seeking out the best vineyards in the Sierra Foothills to craft delicious wines with balance, character, complexity and varietal correctness. Andis' winemaking team, Mark Fowler and consulting winemakers, Philippe Melka & Maayan Koschitzky, bring a fresh, modern approach to Sierra Foothills AVA, using both traditional and innovative winemaking approaches, which have garnered 90+ point scores in Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast, glowing reviews in print and online media, and placements in some of the finest restaurants nationwide.
The winery building is a state-of-the-art winemaking facility built with a "green" design. The spacious tasting room offers panoramic vineyard views of the surrounding Amador wine country, expansive picnic area and a bocce ball court.
Full of ripe fruit, and robust, earthy goodness, Mourvèdre is actually of Spanish provenance, where it still goes by the name Monastrell or Mataro. It is better associated however, with the Red Blends of the Rhône, namely Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Mourvèdre shines on its own in Bandol and is popular both as a single varietal wine in blends in the New World regions of Australia, California and Washington. Somm Secret—While Mourvèdre has been in California for many years, it didn’t gain momentum until the 1980s when a group of California winemakers inspired by the wines of the Rhône Valley finally began to renew a focus on it.
As the lower part of the greater Sierra Foothills appellation, Amador is roughly a plateau whose vineyards grow at 1,200 to 2,000 feet in elevation. It is 100 miles east of both San Francisco and Napa Valley. Most of its wineries are in the oak-studded rolling hillsides of Shenandoah Valley or east in Fiddletown, where elevations are slightly higher.
The Sierra Foothills growing area was among the largest wine producers in the state during the gold rush of the late 1800s. The local wine industry enjoyed great success until just after the turn of the century when fortune-seekers moved elsewhere and its population diminished. With Prohibition, winemaking was totally abandoned, along with its vineyards. But some of these, especially Zinfandel, still remain and are the treasure chest of the Sierra Foothills as we know them.
Most Amador vines are planted in volcanic soils derived primarily from sandy clay loam and decomposed granite. Summer days are hot but nighttime temperatures typically drop 30 degrees and the humidity is low, making this an ideal environment for grape growing. Because there is adequate rain throughout the year and even snow in the winter, dry farming is possible.