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cmacias@sacbee.com

Wine Buzz CHRIS MACIAS

A toast to Painted FieldsBy Mike DunneSpecial to The Bee

The American wine consumer hasbeen brought up on wines labeledby varietal, such as cabernet sauvi-gnon, zinfandel and merlot.

That’s their comfort zone, andthey’re reluctant to be weanedfrom it, even though many of themore exciting wines to enter the

market these days are blends labeled without a vari-etal designation. Generally, they can’t be labeled as a

varietal because federalregulations overseeing thetrade stipulate that a winemust contain at least 75percent of a given variety tocarry its name, and mostblends don’t have thatmuch of a single grape.

Thus, vintners get cre-ative to come up with mean-ingful, colorful and catchyproprietary names in hopesof attracting an audiencethat largely remains stub-bornly committed to vari-etals.

Therefore, out of thenearby Sierra foothillsalone, you’ll find blendswith such evocative namesas Where the Buffalo Roam,Slug Gulch Red, The Span-iard, Apparition and TrainWreck.

Add to that list the pro-prietary name that justmight be the prettiest ofthem all, Painted Fields. IfVincent van Gogh didn’tcall one of his paintingsthat, he should have, giventhe term’s power to evokeimages of fields or vine-yards ever shifting withcolor and drama.

The wine that bears thename – the Andis Wines2008 Amador CountyPainted Fields – is prettypowerful and colorful in itsown right. It’s a veritableartist’s palette. Andis wine-maker Mark McKennabegan by dipping his brushinto a big gob of earthy

mourvèdre, then started toadd dabs of alicante bous-chet, petite sirah, grenacheand five Portuguese grapevarieties.

The composition hecreated is a bright and deepsplash of garnet, which onthe palate blooms withauthoritative and evolvingflavors, one moment redfruit such as raspberries,the next dark fruit such asblackberries, with a brush-stroke of anise here, asplash of white pepper overthere.

It’s a beefy wine, but itstannins are more relaxedthan rigid. It’s a fall wine,insisting to be on the tablealongside a hearty stew. It’sa very graceful piece, in-tended to be savored overand over. If it were hung ina gallery or museum, pa-trons would find them-selves drifting back for onemore look.

The grapes that wentinto the wine were grownat two Shenandoah Valleyvineyards, BellaGrace andBray. Their juice was fer-mented separately. Initially,McKenna expected to re-lease the mourvèdre thataccounts for 44 percent ofthe blend as a varietal,independent of other grapevarieties.

But the more he tasted it,the more he realized that“it didn’t have the legs tostand on its own.” Then he

began to add some of thisand a little of that until hegot a wine so forthright andbalanced it could carrysuch a poetic name.

“Painted Fields” origi-nally was one of about 50names proposed for theShenandoah Valley winerynow known as Andis. Thenaming of the winery,which opened last fall, wasa matter of prolonged de-bate until the owners, An-drew Friedlander and JanisAkuna, decided they’d gowith Andis, an abbreviatedcombination of their firstnames.

“Painted Fields” resur-faced when they started tosearch for a name for theirfirst proprietary wine. Bythat time, no one directlyaffiliated with the winerycould remember who hadproposed the name.

After the wine was la-beled, Friedlander andAkuna took a bottle withthem when they met theirarchitects, Paul Almondand Pam Whitehead ofSage Architecture Inc. inSacramento, for dinner atthe Plymouth restaurantTaste. When the bottle wasput on the table, a startledWhitehead reminded themthat she had recommendedthe name “Painted Fields”for the winery.

“I was really surprised tosee the name on the bottle,”she recalls. She says she

came up with the name asshe mused “about the vine-yard and how it is ever-changing in its colors, boththe leaves and the grapes.

“I also was thinkingabout the creative processof making wine. It’s reallyan artistic endeavor, likedesigning a building. And Iliked the way the namerolled off the tongue, whatit conjures up in your mindand on your palate.”

She sidesteps talkingabout the merits of thewine itself. “I’m not really awine drinker, and when I

do, I tend to favor whitesmore than reds,” she says.

She’s missing a treat.

Longtime wine critic andcompetition judge MikeDunne continues his rela-tionship with The Bee as acontributing columnist tothe Food & Wine section.His wine selections arebased solely on tastings,judging at competitions,and visits to wine regions.Check out his blog atwww.ayearinwine.com,and reach him at mike-dunne@winegigs.com.

Daniel D’Agostini

Andis winery in Amador County named its mourvèdre blend “Painted Fields,” a name that was once suggested for the winery itself.

Blended wine honors the palette of its winery and the palate of its maker

VINTAGES

Andis Wines2008 Amador County Painted Fields

By the numbers: 13.9 percent alcohol, 311 cases, $22Context: Winemaker Mark McKenna recommends PaintedFields with grilled meats and hearty pastas and also notesthat it should hold its own against the onslaught of variedflavors, textures and weights of the traditional year-endholiday banquet.Availability: Painted Fields is stocked by Corti Brothersand the West Sacramento, El Dorado Hills and Rosevillebranches of Nugget Markets. Sacramento-area restaurantsthat carry Andis wines include The Firehouse, Ten22 andHawks. Painted Fields also can be ordered through thewinery’s website, www.andiswines.com.Information: The tasting room at Andis Wines, 11000Shenandoah Road, Plymouth, is open 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m.Thursday through Monday.

Grapes are sorted during harvest.

F inally, here’s restau-rant survey news thatdeserves a toast.

OpenTable, the onlinereservation site, recentlypolled its users and sharedthe findings of its “Top 50Wine Lists in the U.S.”

Two Sacramento-arearestaurants made the cut:Carpe Vino of Auburn andSacramento’s Enotria.

Enotria is the long-run-ning wine bar and restau-rant at 1431 Del Paso Blvd.,which debuted a $1.5 mil-lion remodel in February.Its cellar offers about 400wines, from Californiaclassics, to Burgundy andadventurous picks fromaround the wine world.Learn more atwww.enotria.com or at(916) 922-6792.

“I’d say that getting suchan overly positive responsesurprises us, but we seethat on a daily basis,” saidMichael Coyne Jr., Enotria’sgeneral manager. “We arevery happy to be consid-ered nationally one ofhighest ranked wine lists.”

What’s also surprising ishow poorly Northern Cali-fornia - especially SanFrancisco and Napa winecountry - fared overall.Completely absent in thissurvey are such veritabletemples of wine as SanFrancisco’s Fifth Floor,Cyrus in Sonoma and thestoried French Laundry inNapa.

Then again, Cyrus andFrench Laundry aren’t thekind of places where youjust pop in after work for aflight of sauvignon blanc.

Gary Moffat, co-owner ofCarpe Vino, credited theaffordability of his winesfor helping to make the list.

“Our wine list is accessi-ble from a financial pointof view,” Moffat said. “Wedon’t do restaurant mark-ups. All our prices are retailplus $5 to open the bottlein our restaurant. If you’rein our wine club, we waivethe charge. If you ran thenumbers on the amount ofwine we sell, it would blowyou away.”

Carpe Vino, at 1568 Lin-coln Way in Auburn, isonline at www.carpevinoauburn.com. Or,call (530) 823-0320 forinformation.

Back at Enotria, you’llfind a new wine director inMatthew Lewis. He re-places Jeremiah More-house, who left Enotria inSeptember for San Fran-cisco’s SPQR, known for itsextensive Italian wineprogram (though it alsodidn’t make OpenTable’stop wine list survey).

Lewis is a certified LevelII sommelier with previousstints at the Firehouse andSlocum House. Enotriacontinues its Thursdaynight tastings, which cost$10 and can feature up tosix wines. Special winedinners are also heldmonthly.

Call The Bee’s ChrisMacias, (916) 321-1253.

Two getnationalexposure

HAVE APPETIZERS! Get news, notes and plenty of tidbits on wine, food and dining fromour resident tastemasters – Chris Macias, Allen Pierleoni and Blair Anthony Robertson –at sacbee.com/appetizers

Wednesday, October 26, 2011 | The Sacramento Bee D3