November 2024
Turkey &
Terre Rouge
Bacco’s Wine Club
November 2024
This month we’re featuring 3 bottles that embrace the quintessential family holiday, Thanksgiving.
It’s not every November that we’re left witn this sort of existential angst, no matter how we might feel about our extended family, but this year we’re striving to take va little bit of the edge off with some truly exceptional wines that will suit our most famous feast - that is - if you want to share…
So, start prepping your figurative birds, situate your sides plan, asnd figure out just how many slices of pie you can justify before your whole family turns against you. While there may be no place like home, there are some places like the Rhone…
Terre Rouge
Enigma 2015
Sumu Kaw Vineyard
El Dorado County
Sierra Foothills AVA
California
Farming: Sustainable, Praciting Organic
Hermitage Blanc is a classic blend of the Northern Rhone, but here we find a similar composition made in the Sierra Foothills of California by Bill Eastman of Terre Rouge, but more on that later.
This current vintage is made up of 62% Marsanne, 25% Viognier, and 13% Roussane, but the more remarkable aspect is the age. Bottled in June of 2016, this is nevertheless the current vintage of this particular cuvée. It has since been some eight long years since that day, but we are in capable hands with Bill Eastman, who prides.himself on making age-worthy wines, practicing the art of “elevage”, or "raising” the wines to be aged for a long time.
Did You Know?
Aged red wines are often the norm when it comes to the great regions of Bordeaux and Burgundy and Rioja, but white wines are not as frequently aged, partly due to the flavors wine makers are going for as well as the qualities that make white wine white wine, namely less time (if any) spent fermenting on the skins.
The grape skin is one of the primary sources of tannin for wine, and it helps protect the wine as it ages. Another common characteristic of aged reds and whites is they lose some of their primary fruit flavors, and develop more complex - sometimes savory - characteristics. Think more nutty and cooked fruit flavors.
2015 Vintage Notes from the winemaker:
Enigma is made from fruit harvested from one vineyard site, Suma Kaw, planted in volcanic soil at an elevation of 3,000 feet in Pleasant Valley area of El Dorado County. The vineyard is on a sweeping North slope where we harvested the Marsanne and the Viognier on September 8th, and the Roussanne on September 26th in 2015 which was a super early harvest with a minuscule amount of fruit. This high, cool elevation allows us to let the fruit hang for full flavor development while maintaining proper acidity.
2015 Winemaking Notes
This wine was fermented and aged in older French oak barrels and then bottled in June 2016. This infers that the winemaker didn’t want the oak to have a huge impact on the final flavor, but wanted to make use of some of the oak’s aging characteristics - oak is a breathable vessel and often can impart flavor depending on the age of the barrel, the older the barrel, the less impact of flavor.
Tasting & Pairing Notes
Like its more famous counterparts in Hermitage, this Marsanne heavy blend is full of notes of tangy apricot, peach, apple, and quince, but leans into those more savory, aged white wine characteristics, making it a perfect foil for a classic charcuterie board with Prosciutto and salami and, of course, cheese!
Terre Rouge
“L’Autre”
Grenache 2014
El Dorado, Amador County
Sierra Foothills AVA
California
F arming: Organic/Sustainable
Bill Eastman and his wife Jane O'Riordan have been amidst the California wine scene since the late 70s, first as proprietors of a wine shop in the Bay Area before developing the winemaking itch in the mid 80s. Bill is considered one of the founding “Rhone Rangers”, a group of winemakers who were dedicated to planting Rhone Valley varietals like Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvèdre in the heart of California’s winemaking country.
What makes Terre Rouge even more unique in the California wine scene is Bill’s dedication to elevage, the French process of aging wines. Current release on their wines go no younger than 2018, and the resulting wines are full of complexity that come from time spent fermenting and aging in barrel and bottle.
“L’Autre” or “the other” is considered the top Rhone cuvee in the Terre Rouge lineup, made to be every bit the equal of exalted Chateauneuf de Pape red blends. This vintage’s blend is madeup of 75% Grenache, 17% Mourvèdre & 8% Syrah.
2014 Vintage Notes From The Winemaker:
Te Grenache for L’Autre is high-end clonal material from the Southern Rhône Valley That is grown in one of our cooler sites in Southern El Dorado County. The soils are decomposed granite and are similar to what Grenache prefers in parts of the Southern Rhône like Gigondas, and in Spain’s Sierra Gredos. The Mourvèdre is blended from several sites we work with in El Dorado and Amador counties. The Syrah in the blend is from the estate-grown DTR Ranch in Fiddletown.
2014 Tasting Notes :
Tis 2014 is very elegant, complex, and lively. It shows Grenache savory plum and black cherry flavors, coupled with Mourvèdre’s smoky gaminess, and a bit of richness and punch from the Syrah component. This is a dead ringer for a top Southern Rhône,; say a Châteauneuf-du-Pape or Gigondas.
Terre Rouge
“L’Ouest” 2018
Syrah
Multiple Vineyard Sites
Clement Hills AVA &
Sierra Foothills AVA
California
Farming: Sustainable / Practicing Organic
Perhaps the grape that Bill and Jane are most familiar, and most famous for, their L’Ouest” or “western” Syrah is their entry level Syrah that rivals those of any classic producer of St. Joseph in the Northern Rhone. They also make an exceptional Ascent Syrah, which was recently given an 100 point score, but the secret to success here is that a lot of that same fruit is used in this blend. Some Syrahs can overstay their welcome on their gamey and peppery characteristics, this bottle is not one of them.
2018 Vintage Notes From The Winemaker:
This is the twentieth vintage of our Les Côtes de l’Ouest Syrah. It is made from fruit grown (about 25% of the blend) at a superb vineyard site that is planted in the hills just west of the Amador County line, just a few miles from the Mokelumne River in the Clements Hills AVA. Tight spacing, vertical trellising, and upward shoot positioning give the fruit maximum sun exposure to promote full flavor development. This site is blended with our mountain Syrah’s (the remaining 75% of the blend) grown at several other vineyard sites higher in the Sierra Nevada Foothills. We chose these sites because of their impeccable vineyard management (some of which we farm) and their flavor compatibility. The soils at the Clements Hills site are alluvium granite rock (Monpellier & Cometa) and the climate is moderated by Delta cooling. The other higher sites are a variety of volcanic and granite-based soil series that develop grapes with small cluster morphology. We find this wine is very forward and drinkable shortly after bottling, making it a great everyday Syrah
2018 Winemaking Notes:
We co-fermented the Syrah with a bit of Viognier in each fermenter to finesse the wine as we always try to do with this cuvée. The grapes were lightly-crushed and fermented in our larger tanks and irrigated to minimize tannin extraction and aged 17 months in 20% new and 80% used French oak barrels. The finished wine is 96% Syrah and 4% Viognier. It was bottled at the end of March in 2020.
2018 Tasting Notes:
This 2018 vintage has beautiful deep color with rich, silky, wildaspberry fruit flavors laced with pepper, sage, tar, and olive/herb tones. Aromas are raspberry, smoky, wild gamey, peppery, and cinnamon.