Image courtesy WineAccess.com |
This tasting is an extremely well-promoted event in the wine world, attracting a large media contingent and lots of follow-on publicity. TAPAS, which is short for Tempranillo Advocates Producers and Amigos Society, also has other El Dorado members. They have recently instituted a Wine Trail on their website at http://www.tapasociety.org/trail/sierra .
Several other El Dorado Wine GrapeGrower Association members proudly grow Tempranillo in their vineyards. They are:
- Alvarez Vineyards
- D’Artagnan Vineyards
- Grace
Vineyards
- Kingsgate
Farm
- Pasto
Vineyards
- Pineoak
Vineyard
- Shadow Ranch
- Shaker Ridge Vineyard
We'll talk more about El Dorado tempranillo growers in future posts, why it's grown in El Dorado, and how it fares...besides making good wine of course!
For the TAPAS tasting, Greg poured his G minor, a blend of
Grenache-Syrah-Tempranillo, and his Orellana, a blend
of Tempranillo-Grenache. He also used
this opportunity to pour two Grenache-only Baiocchi wines, Sharon's Vineyard
Grenache and Neophyte Rose. All Baiocchi
wines are produced from estate fruit.
Greg Baiocchi supplied this info on
his Vineyard’s Tempranillo Specs:
1 Acre
Clone - FPS 02
Rootstock - 101-14
Soil - Decompsed Granite, well
draining
Trellis - VSP North/South
Spacing - 4X7
Training - Unilateral
Attitude - West
Baiocchi stated: “Tempranillo is a vigorous varietal
that loves sun / heat and well drained soils. The vines will produce up to 6
tons an acre if allowed. Our site in Fair Play at 2300' has all of the Terroir
to resemble sites in Spain in which it’s a native.
"The decomposed granite, rootstock,
training & spacing was all designed to de-vigorate the vines. We challenge
them, stress them a bit and create an environment where they will produce
superb wine grapes. We train them to do what we as winemakers want them to do,
instead of just re-producing as they were bred to do...
"We do our best to crop this acre at
2.5 tons, which creates much handwork thinning the shoots and clusters at
specific times during the growing season. With this management, though, we are
able to harvest fruit with incredible concentration of phenolics and flavors.
"Tempranillo's personality and
character is dark and brooding. Great fruit is complemented by earth and
leather which makes for a great partner blending with Grenache and Syrah = GST,”
concluded El Dorado grape grower and vintner Greg Baiocchi.
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