2006 Rompecabezas Amador Red Wine

“Rompecabezas,” which in Spanish means “jig-saw puzzle,” is the name of our Souther-Rhone style blend, and the double-entendre is perfect for this wine. The grapes—Grenache, Mourvedre, and Syrah—hail from the soon-to-be-famous Amador vineyard of friend and viticulturist Ann Kraemer. Whole cluster, very ripe Grenache, with immediate notes of tobacco and dried cherries, is co-fermented with fresh, vibrant Mourvedre in small, open-top oak fermenters. After a long, controlled maceration, the wine is blended with Syrah and put into 700 liter French oak puncheons for two years.
The resulting wine—roughly one-third each variety—is deeply exotic, showing aromatic notes of flowers and citrus. If not for the color, you might be fooled that this was a white wine. But on the palate, the wine shows ample structure and mouthwatering flavors of red-leaf tobacco, plum, and currant. Not a super-extracted giant, but a subtle mind-bender of a blend that takes you on a trip to the Mediterranean..

73 cases produced.