2013 Favia Rompecabezas Red Wine 750 ml

From the Sierra Foothills’ Secret Garden: A Red to Challenge Napa’s Best

If To Kalon is Napa’s undisputed Grand Cru, the vineyard source for Annie Favia and Andy Erickson’s 2014 Favia Rompecabezas—the steeply-sloped Shake Ridge Vineyard—is Northern California’s up-and-coming Grand Cru. Erickson, an alum of Screaming Eagle, Bond, and Ovid, scooped up a handful of rows from Shake Ridge for Rompecabezas, which is rarely available outside Favia’s exclusive mailing list (and select Michelin 3-star restaurants). This is your shot at owning a blockbuster red from a winemaking legend and the most talked about vineyard east of Napa.   

The 2013 Rompecabezas Red, a classic Châteauneuf-du-Pape style bottling is dark as night in the glass and the intrigue doesn’t stop there. Immensely concentrated, the blend—which leans on Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre—exudes dark red cherry, plum, and blackberry, seasoned with dried herbs, a touch of smoke, and oak-induced spice. A Napa-labelled bottle with this intensity would easily command $150 or more, so how does Favia bottle a red that competes with both French and California stalwarts at half the price?

It’s simple: Their secret spot for California’s best Rhône grapes lies outside Napa’s borders.

The jewel of the Sierra Foothills, the 46-acre Shake Ridge vineyard is the secret garden of top viticulturist Ann Kraemer, a Napa Valley escapee who consulted for the Golden State’s most iconic vineyards including Stagecoach, Cain, and Shafer before staking her own claim in Amador’s wild mountain foothills. Perched at over 1,700 feet (higher than most Napa vines) this Grand Cru site is a hotbed for a bevy of 100-point California winemakers.

Ever since it was planted, winemaking luminaries like Erickson, along with Tim Milos (Hidden Ridge), Helen Keplinger (Keplinger Wines, Bryant Family), Tegan Passalacqua (Turley), Morgan Twain-Peterson MW (Bedrock), and 30 others we can’t mention by name, have flocked to the site. Here iron-rich red soils, like those in Napa’s Oakville AVA, are flecked with quartz crystals the size of car batteries, and grapes planted here produce wines of structure, elegance, and finesse. The diurnal shift at Shake Ridge is staggering: The mercury can plummet 50 degrees between the heat of the afternoon and the chilly nights, a condition that results in beautiful natural acidity. It is a vineyard source that feels natural, wild, and far-flung—“where the good stuff is,” according to Erickson.

Favia is all about aromatics and elegance, and Rompecabezas, although plenty powerful, has both virtues in spades. Muscular Grenache was co-fermented with Mourvèdre in concrete, then blended with Syrah and aged for 20 months in neutral French oak and concrete eggs. The result is a blend of dark, dense California intensity, and savory Rhône-style complexity, showing ripe red fruit, five spice, and salted licorice. This is the work of two California masters.

Balancing Napa-like intensity with savory Rhône-style complexity, showing ripe black cherry and plum fruit and brown spices. Start adding these to your collection before prices skyrocket into triple-digit territory.