2000 Rocks and GravelI've tried, since 1985, to find a way to re-create, in a wine made from California grapes, the pleasure I experience when I smell and taste my favorite wines from Chateauneuf du Pape. The aromas of those wines are so thrilling, so utterly seductive. I've had, over the years, some minor successes; made some wines in which certain comparable aromatic themes suggested themselves, certain weights and textures that seemed in one way or another to carry some distant kinship. The wines have been well-liked, first Les Côtes Sauvages, then Rocks and Gravel. They each developed a more or less recognizeable personality as the years passed, one that certainly sprang from my own responses to the aromas, flavors, textures that the different component parts presented, and to the challenge of finding a way to make them sing, in harmony. Then, in 2000, the Rozet vineyard came into the picture, and everything changed. When I blended the 2000 Rocks and Gravel, including in it some of the wine from Rozet, everything suddenly seemed to fall into place. It will take me awhile, I'm sure, to develop an explanation that I will find completely convincing, and that is perhaps as maddening as anything. But the aromas, flavors, and textures of the 2000 Rocks and Gravel are nothing if not convincing, and, for now, that will have to do. 46% Grenache, 30% Mourvedre, 23% Syrah, 1% Counoise Fruit Sources:
WINEMAKING: All fruit hand picked, destemmed into open-top tanks. Cuvaison 10-14 days. (Mourvedre and Grenache from Rozet co-fermented with Syrah and Counoise) Pressed at dryness, barreled right from press (older French puncheons). ML in barrel. Preliminary blends at first racking, in March, 2001. Final blend at second racking, late Spring, 2001. Bottled mid-August, 2001. Winemaker's Tasting Notes: Pretty, deep ruby red, purple at the edge. Energized aromas of violets, dried rose, licorice, thyme, lavender, cracked pepper, and underbrush, plums, and dried cherries, raspberries. Mouth-coating sweet fruit, a good dose of fat. Great inner mouth perfume, echoing the nose. Lively, sweet tannins. Finish begs for another taste. This is mouth-watering wine that calls for lively, savory dishes. Very hard to distinguish from red wine from the Southern Rhone. Total Production: 725 cases. Produced and bottled by Intuition and Blind Luck |
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