Winemaker Notes
This Southern Rhone inspired wine aspires to the more ethereal, mineral laden side of Chateauneuf du Pape. It offers delicate aromas of roasted red fruits and coats the palate with warm sunshine, perfect balance and a medium body that will bring much joy and further reward with cellar aging.
Blend: 87% Grenache, 7% Mourvedre, and 6% Syrah.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
This wine has some of the alluring complexity and earthiness of a Pinot Noir, but with Grenache’s bear hug texture. It’s full bodied, full flavored and moderately fruity, giving room for enticing woodsy, spicy, mushroomy accents to emerge on the palate. The winemaker used 30% whole clusters and blended in small amounts of Mourvèdre and Syrah.
Grenache thrives in any warm, Mediterranean climate where ample sunlight allows its clusters to achieve full phenolic ripeness. While Grenache's birthplace is Spain (there called Garnacha), today it is more recognized as the key player in the red blends of the Southern Rhône, namely Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Côtes du Rhône and its villages. Somm Secret—The Italian island of Sardinia produces bold, rustic, single varietal Grenache (there called Cannonau). California, Washington and Australia have achieved found success with Grenache, both flying solo and in blends.
As home to California’s highest altitude vineyards, El Dorado is also one of its oldest wine growing regions. When gold miners settled here in the late 1800s, many also planted vineyards and made wine to quench its local demand.
By 1870, El Dorado County, as part of the greater Sierra Foothills growing area, was among the largest wine producers in the state, behind only Los Angeles and Sonoma counties. 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 and grape growing was totally abandoned. But some of these vines still exist today and are the treasure chest of the Sierra Foothills as we know them.
El Dorado has a diverse terrain with elevations ranging from 1,200 to 3,500 feet, creating countless mesoclimates for its vineyards. This diversity allows success with a wide range of grapes including whites like Gewurztraminer and Sauvignon Blanc, as well as for reds, Grenache, Syrah, Tempranillo, Barbera and especially, Zinfandel.
Soils tend to be fine-grained volcanic rock, shale and decomposed granite. Summer days are hot but nights are cool and the area typically gets ample precipitation in the form or rain or snow in the winter.