Matt Hughes claims that his approach to Six Sigma’s 2011 Tempranillo was little more than rudimentary.
“We smashed it up, fermented it and put it in barrels,” he said with a laugh.
Of course, the crew at Six Sigma Ranch & Winery believe great wine begins with great fruit, allowing the winemaker to guide each vintage with a lighter touch. But the lighthearted comment belies all the consideration put into the wine before presenting it to the public.
Six Sigma’s 2011 is a signature Tempranillo, continuing a line of success that began in 2005. It welcomes you with aromas of ripe black cherries and blackberries, lilting over a richer draft of dark fruit jam. Tucked within this pleasant opening banter are thoughts of greater weight— binding leather, percolating coffee and toasted wood.
It would be easy to mistake this for a European version, even on the nose.
A sip of the 2011 releases a trove of fruit, ripe and heavy. Instead of peaking toward cherry, however, the flavors plumb toward blueberry, picked or fallen from the bush and baked into a warm, hearty tart. Behind this waft streaks of a meaty smoke. The acrid structure picks up on notes weathered into the wine from barrel staves, yet these are almost genteel: suede and soft pepper that usher you to the finish. It’s a neatly balanced wine.
The fruit stands in your memory, naturally. But so does that inscrutable hint of smokehouse meat.
“I think of it like bacon fat in the pan,” Hughes observed. “It’s a bacon smoke character.”
This beautiful wine began in the vineyard with the realization that a varietal noted for caving in to ill-suited terroir fit perfectly in the rolling Six Sigma soil. From the start, the winery’s Tempranillo earned recognition, and they’ve been fine tuning the plot every since.
Hughes and his team also introduced larger 500 liter barrels to the process. This allows him to rest the wine for two years in all new French oak without soaking in too many notes from the wood.
“That’s the goal — as much complexity as we can back into it without upsetting the balance,” he said. “The wine has a chance to reach a natural equilibrium, to come to its own conclusion about what it wants to be.”
Still wary of the temperamental tannic quality often found in young Tempranillo (and from fruit grown on dull, sunbaked land), Hughes and the Six Sigma crew decided to let the wine settle in the bottle before its release.
The result is evident in the 2011, with its unruly youthful ways long forgotten.
“Four years is perfect for Tempranillo,” Hughes pointed out. “They hit adulthood.”
Yes, he essentially smashed the grapes and poured the juice into barrels. But years of observation, of study, of calibrating and of adapting led to this particular vintage.
All that work, Hughes explained, “allows me to take a hands off approach.”
And it leaves us with a tremendous Tempranillo.
Dave Faries can be reached at 900-2016
