47% Tannat, 20% Syrah, 15% Mourvèdre, 11% Petite Sirah, and 7% Cinsaut

The Tannat, Syrah, and Petite Sirah were all farmed by Jim Johnson, and harvested by our crew.  Jim was the former owner of Tio Pancho Vineyard, now Bear Vineyards owned by Noelle Montag.  He planted varieties like Syrah, Tempranillo and Grenache as far back as 1998. The Tannat and Durif (Petite Sirah) as Jim referred to it were planted in 2008 and were some of the earliest plantings of those varieties.  With Jim in his mid 70's and having had no previous growers' experience in that area, or Texas as a whole really, to build from had plenty of issues and lost many of those older vines.  With a deep alluvial soil near the Colorado River, the vines don't need much irrigation and sport massive trunks, cordons and canopies with relatively high yield per plant.  Very different than our vineyards at the winery and in Round Mountain.  We've learned a lot from working with this old vineyard and have zeroed in on a couple of the varieties out of the 10 Jim farmed as more ideal for our wines.  Keep an eye out for our "Bear Vineyard" wines in the future. 

The Mourvèdre and Cinsaut come from equally deep, albeit drier, soils in the High Plains.  Sourced from younger vines in a fairly productive vintage, these two lots were produced in flex tank and were very soft wines, perfect for toning down the beast from Jim's old vineyard.   A table wine from a lot of different lots, enjoy with grilled and smoked meat.