I have been writing about the wines that I receive from A Taste of Monterey for several years now and I have always just put a little blip about the winery and the wine.  I just never really felt comfortable about it, because the Lord knows that I like to ramble, once I get started.  Also, some of the wineries just get short changed because the biggies and the cult wines get all of the publicity.  I don’t know about you, but as we get closer and closer to full retirement, the cult wines are just an expenditure that we don’t need.  I also find it fun, if I can find a quirky tidbit about a winery, because that is just me, especially when I meander.

De Tierra Vineyards in 1998 as an organic grape-growing concern in the Salinas Valley by an agriculture professional from Phoenix, Arizona by the name of Tom Russell.  He teamed up with a friend and winemaker from Vignalta, Italy named Lucio Gomiero and they created a forty-acre estate and called it De Tierra Vineyards, which translate to “of the land.”  It is an artesian winery or a boutique winery, both names are proper.  On the estate they grow five varietals; Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Merlot, Riesling and Cabernet Franc and then they have contracts with growers in the Monterey County.  They also maintain a tasting room in Carmel-by-the-Sea, and my Bride will remind me that we are over due for another holiday there.  I have had the good fortune to have written about a couple of other wines, a De Tierra Vineyards Syrah 2002 which was a Monterey AVA and a De Tierra Vineyards Tondre Grapefield Pinot Noir Santa Lucia Highlands 2012 and both of these were fruit harvested under contract.  I am sure that if I go into the cellar, I will probably find a few more, because I am that organized.

The wine I just received also carries a Monterey AVA, because two of the grapes in this wine are not grown on the estate’s Russell Vineyard.  The De Tierra Vineyards “Five by Five” Red Wine 2015 is a Bordeaux blend, that a lot of wineries call a Meritage, if they have joined and paid the dues to that society.  The wine is a blend of twenty-five percent Petit Verdot, twenty-five percent Malbec, twenty-five percent Syrah, twenty percent Merlot and five percent Cabernet Franc.  The wine was aged for twenty-four months in a mix of half new and half neutral oak barrels, with a total production of two-hundred-fifty-two cases of wine.  From the wineries tasting notes they describe it as a deep burgundy in color with a nose that promises cigar box, smoke, black currants, plums and dried rose petals.  On the palate it is listed as having robust tannins and vibrant acidity and flavors of blackberry, plum and raspberry.  The suggested aging potential for this wine is eight to ten years.  Time will tell.