Winemaker Notes
The 2024 Cooper Barbera has a ruby purple color of moderate depth with garnet hues and a suggestion of carmine. The wine's aroma of briary ripe red raspberries is on the verge of graduation from the red fruits of cherry and strawberries to their darker versions of black cherry and black raspberry. Aging in small barrels for ten months has provided this wine with a bouquet of hazelnuts, and toast. With time in the glass the hazelnut and toast are joined by notes of caramel and vanilla that are reminiscent of almond paste. Wines produced from Barbera grapes exhibit a seldom seen combination of characteristics in that they possess both a richness along with a succulent acidity. The flavors coat the palate with creamy ripe fruit; raspberry, mulberry, and blackberry while maintaining a zippy brightness that is Barbera. Typical of Barbera, the tannins are mild and contribute viscosity to the wine's texture without adding bitterness or astringency or displacing the fruit from center stage. Warm oak flavors join the fruit to generate a finish where flavors of chocolate and deeply toasted oak linger well.
Friendly and approachable, Barbera produces wines in a wide range of styles, from youthful, fresh and fruity to serious, structured and age-worthy. Piedmont is the most famous source of Barbera; those from Asti and Alba garner the most praise. Barbera actually can adapt to many climates and enjoys success in some New World regions. Somm Secret—In the past it wasn’t common or even accepted to age Barbera in oak but today both styles—oaked and unoaked—abound and in fact most Piedmontese producers today produce both styles.
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.