Winemaker Notes
As the Amador winery is located on Bell Road, they named this wine for the eponymous (and notorious) “hanging” Judge Bell, who presided over the nearby town of Plymouth during its Gold Rush heyday. Harking from own-rooted vines planted in 1907, the wine shows quintessential Amador granitic tannins & briary fruits. Drinking Judge Bell is the closest you’ll ever get to time travel. These 111-year-old vines are deeply rooted in the organically-farmed granite soil, and the wine they produce is distinctively Amador in its pure luminous red color and red-fruited aromatics. The texture further tells the story of the Sierra Foothills, once the epicenter of California’s Gold Rush, with its highly-polished, fine-grained mountain tannins. Drinking exceptionally well now, but will age if you have the patience.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Winemaker Tegan Passalacqua suggests the 2016 Zinfandel Judge Bell Vineyard is strangely reminiscent of Nebbiolo, and it's difficult to disagree. The wine displays a complex bouquet of dried herbs, sage and juicy red-black fruit, followed by a full-bodied, ample and fleshy palate with chewy, stony tannins and an enticingly bittersweet "amaro" finish that's a world away from how Zinfandel is commonly rendered. This is one of the most singular wines in the Turley lineup.
Unapologetically bold, spice-driven and jammy, Zinfandel has secured its title as the darling of California vintners by adapting well to the state's diverse microclimates and landscapes. Born in Croatia, it later made its way to southern Italy where it was named Primitivo. Fortunately, the imperial nursery of Vienna catalogued specimens of the vine, and it later made its way to New England in 1829. Parading the true American spirit, Zinfandel found a new home in California during the Gold Rush of 1849. Somm Secret—California's ancient vines of Zinfandel are those that survived the neglect of Prohibition; today these vines produce the most concentrated, ethereal and complex examples.
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.