2003 Shell and Bone Red

The name "Shell and Bone" is a reference to the soil in which the grapes that produced this wine were grown. The hills on the west side of Paso Robles are comprised, in large part, of Cretaceous Era limestone, the residue of marine life from an ancient sea-bed. (The former name of this wine was "Los Robles Viejos," in reference to the old oaks that set this landscape of tall, bosomy hills, apart from other segments of California's landscape. So the name has moved, in a sense, from the realm of geography to that of geology.) The Mourvedre (36%), Grenache (35%) Syrah (19%) and Counoise (10%) that comprise this wine, all take a big measure of their character from these cretaceous-era deposits of oyster shell, whalebone, and fish skeletons that mark the ground in this area. That character is most often recognized as a kind of dynamic tension in aroma and flavor sometimes alluded to as "nerve" or "nervosity." There's perhaps a more transparent minerality, and strong sense of place that's more pronounced than in wines from other kinds of soils.

FRUIT SOURCE:

Rozet Vineyard, Paso Robles

WINEMAKING NOTES:

Fruit destemmed into open-top fermenters, manual punchdowns twice daily, average cuvaison 12-15 days. Pressed directly into 19-24 year-old French puncheons. Spontaneous ml in barrel. Racked April, '04, racked to stainless, August '04. Bottled February '05.

WINEMAKER'S TASTING NOTES:

Pretty color between ruby and garnet. Nose mingles blood, smoke, and sweet fruit mixing cherry and plum. Spice and sweetness, and texture mark this wine, once again, in the manner of Chateauneuf du Pape. Not as animale as the first couple of vintages from Rozet, but every bit as noble, and fine.

• Production: 235 cases
• Suggested Retail: $25.00
• Release Date: 2005

Produced And Bottled By Intuition and Blind Luck, under the direction of Steve Edmunds, winemaker.