2006 Women of the Vine Tempranillo

Debora Brenner, author of Women of the Vine offers this week’s pick, suggesting one of California’s few Tempranillo wines.  Women of the Vine Tempranillo is produced by winemaker Dorothy Schuler in Paso Robles California.  Partly thanks to Schuler, Paso Robles  is one of the very few places in California where this Spanish grape is being successfully cultivated.   According to Brenner, the wine has blackberry and cherry flavors had has a long finish that includes vanilla and almond.  It is aged in both French and American oak for two years, followed by one year of bottle age before release.  Wine Library’s Gary Vaynerchuk rates it 90 points.

This wine is one of the several wines that Deborah Brenner decided to market after the successful release of her book.   She had escaped a career in high tech to write Women of the Vine, which highlights the careers of successful women in the wine industry.  The Wine Spectator dubbed it one of the “best new books” of the year (published 2007).  After profiling other impressive women in the wine industry, Brenner herself became one of them by launching Women of the Vine wine label.  Under this label, her company markets limited production wines made by successful female winemakers, including some of the women in her book.