{"product_id":"orixe-sotelo-sacro-reserva-tempranillo-2021","title":"Orixe Sotelo Sacro Reserva Tempranillo 2021","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Land\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePaso Robles gets filed under hot California red country, which misreads its western half. The AVA covers more than 614,000 acres, the largest in California, subdivided into eleven districts in 2014. The westside sits on an uplifted ancient seabed: chalky limestone and calcareous shale off the Monterey Formation, alkaline and hard-draining. Vineyards west of Highway 101 run from roughly 850 to 2,000 feet, with rainfall from ten inches a year on the eastern flats to forty in the hills. Every afternoon marine air pushes through the Templeton Gap off the Pacific, and the gap between afternoon high and overnight low reaches 40 to 50 degrees. Days build ripeness, nights hold acid, limestone supplies the spine. Spanish varieties have found real footing here for exactly that reason.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Wine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTempranillo from Paso Robles. Reserva on this label deserves a second look. In Rioja, Reserva is a legal category: 36 months of aging minimum, at least 12 in oak barrel and six in bottle, audited by the Consejo Regulador. In California the word is regulated by nobody. An American producer printing it is making a claim about their own hierarchy rather than clearing a bar, and here it marks the top red. Bottles are numbered by hand, this one 0602, so the lot is small. The vintage backs the ambition. 2021 followed the drought and fire year of 2020, and the water stress carried through: early bud break, a long ripening cycle, no major heat spikes, cluster weights 20 to 30 percent below normal. Small berries, high skin-to-juice ratio, concentration without heavy extraction. Tempranillo off limestone with that much night cooling runs toward red cherry, dried fig, tobacco and iron rather than jam, with chalky tannin.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe People\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe crest reads “singular wines from Alta California,” which is history rather than flourish. Alta California was a province of New Spain, formally separated from Baja California in 1804, and wine culture arrived with Spanish missionaries planting Listán Prieto, later called the Mission grape, for sacramental wine. Phylloxera, the temperance movement and Prohibition severed that line, and when the industry restarted in the 1960s it restarted on French cultivars. Gustavo Sotelo’s position is that the Spanish chapter was interrupted, not finished. He worked the 2014 harvest at Bodegas Mauro in Ribera del Duero and came back struck by how closely Spain’s coastline and topography echo California’s. Orixe Sotelo, founded 2019, sells almost entirely through its own club and mailing list.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFood Pairing\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLamb shoulder cooked slowly with garlic and smoked pimentón until it shreds, piled on grilled bread rubbed with tomato, where the fat softens chalky tannin and the paprika meets the wine’s savory register. A ribeye over coals, salted hard and rested, the acidity cutting char and fat. Aged Manchego with quince paste and a few slices of jamón, salt pulling the fruit forward. Or duck breast with a cherry pan sauce. Open this when you have cooked something on purpose: a birthday dinner at home, a table of six, the first cold night of fall.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Few \u0026 Far Wine Co","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51247711322335,"sku":null,"price":40.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0439\/7436\/1248\/files\/P8220197.jpg?v=1787526007","url":"https:\/\/danverwinemerchant.com\/products\/orixe-sotelo-sacro-reserva-tempranillo-2021","provider":"Denver Wine Merchant","version":"1.0","type":"link"}