2013 Field Recordings, Tempranillo, Dead End Ranch, Paso Robles.
Andrew Jones’ Field Recordings label is a great value selection of wonderfully unique wines from special vineyards in the Paso Robles and Central Coast region, his winemaking is light handed and with the greatest respect for the vines. Jones is a nursery fieldman by trade, he has planted many thousands of acres throughout California and is something of a Vineyard Whisperer and these connections to unknown or little known vineyard site has been translated into his wines. He has build some great relationships with people and places, which now are recorded in the bottles. His labels are beautiful artistic expressions of the vineyard’s main nemesis Starlings, in flight, the amazing patterns as they dance in the sky show natures grace and everyone is it’s own piece of art, never to be repeated. The 2012 Tempranillo comes off a small parcel of Dead End Ranch as is one of the best California Tempranillo blends I’ve tried from this Spanish grape, which doesn’t regularly turn out with much success in our state, but Jones has found the magic with this one. It is a blend of 82% Tempranillo, 6% Petite Sirah, 6% Graciano and 6% Monastrall (Mourvedre) and comes in at 13.1% alcohol making for a ripe, rich and complex wine but with life and restraint, not over done or flabby in anyway, this is a pretty and engaging red. The Field Recordings latest hit shows red cherry, blackberry, plum and tangy raspberry fruits with hints of tobacco/cigar wrapper, anise, creamy oak notes, vanilla, baking spice, coco along with cedar and dusty mineral finishing with lingering framboise, mint and fine tannins. Drink now through 2018.
($18 Est.) 92 Points, grapelive
avail at www.sfwtc.com ($14.95)