otably, boredom in the minds of that body of consumers who sustain 95 percent of our 5,000-plus wineries for no better reason than the fact that they find wine “interesting” and are willing to pay handsomely to explore their chosen interests. These are the so-called “wine enthusiasts” who have been the lifeblood of our tenuous North American wine culture. Simply put, when consumer ennui hits these folks, this industry is fried.

To the extent that we even have a fringe of traditional Euro-style Wine-as-Food culture on this side of the Atlantic, it is the Gallos and Broncos and a handful of other smart industrial producers who will effectively service that market. But, for better or worse, the remaining thousands of wineries are really in the Wine-as-Fashion business. Their pitch has to be at the brain, not the belly of interest-driven wine enthusiasts. It's not about a commodity to wash down a mouthful of mama’s linguine; it's about a substance that purports to be a focal interest in bourgeois lifestyle. In the Wine-as-Fashion world, CaMeZinPiSy just doesn’t cut it. BORRRIIING!!! .

Well, this old alarmist is here with Good News! Add TAPAS to your mental inventory of essential acronyms. The Tempranillo Advocates, Producers and Amigos Society, an organization that promotes the production of Iberian grape varieties in the U.S., has arrived to beat back the boredom. Hey, amigo, if you are feeling a touch of vinous ennui creeping in around the edges of your passion for wine, you should immediately fall in line with these bold exploring conquistadores.

TAPAS can definitely enlarge your brain…
and extend your life as a wine enthusiast.

Bold claim, you may say? Well, having personally undergone the TAPAS revitalization treatment recently at the organization’s first annual confab staged at Napa’s Copia Center, I am prepared to highlight the precise neurological regions of my own cell rejuvenation and the commensurate expansion in mental capacity, which has miraculously occurred in the process. These neurological observations will be accompanied below by prescriptions for the curative elixirs which have accounted for renewed health in each cerebral zone.

The “First Step” in mind expansion, for me, came with a quick look at Appellation America’s own Varietal and Appellation Indexes. While Tempranillo may be leading the advance column, there are a couple of dozen other distinct Iberian varietal characters in the fascinating train of new flavors.

Don’t be intimidated by Spanish and Portuguese pronunciations…remember, you eventually got it right with Viognier....and you can always reach for Franco-Spanish crossover synapses like Mourvedre for Mataro and Grenache for Garnacha. Just work on it a bit and you will find room for all these happy little amigos in the ever-expanding let's-make-friends lobe of your mind.

And, don’t hesitate to test your tolerance lobe by spending some time with Bastardo, who, for example, you will find residing (100%) in St. Amant Winery’s Tawny (style) Port. Winemaker Stuart Spencer reports that unceremoniously slamming Bastardo in a barrel and totally ignoring him for a few years is the secret to turning this vitis-desparado into the supple sweetheart he came across as when I tasted the wine. Tough love…well, maybe just tough!

Expect major expansion in the geographic horizons lobe of your grey matter, as well. These conquistadores have penetrated further into the continent that you may have suspected. For example, you will find Tempranillo laying claim to about 2,000 acres in 45 winegrowing appellations, with beachheads as far east as Virginia (Chrysalis Vineyards), as far north as the Lake Erie AVA in Ohio (Hermes Vineyards), and then a pretty continuous band of producers following the missionary trail across Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and beyond into Oregon and Washington.

All in all, this portends for a pretty interesting mix of terroir patterns to bend, if not blow, your ennui-leaning mind. In appellations, such as Texas High Plains, Sonoita, Lodi, and Southern Oregon, we are going to find the hot and arid conditions that ring true to our recollections of Tempranillo’s homeland. But consider Tempranillo and his compadres in coastal, mountainous and verdant venues like Carneros, Santa Ynez Valley, Calaveras County and the Willamette Valley. Expect lots of flavor profile diversity, on terroir grounds alone. Now it’s getting really interesting! Who could be bored with this complexity?

Beyond Terroir: Winemaking and Varietal Choices

Rich as the ecological diversity is, terroir is not a stand alone in expanding our mind with these wines. Always there are the winemaking style choices, not to mention the core character of Tempranillo as a varietal, to further challenge the thinking and experience for the producer and consumer, alike.

To my knowledge, pretty much everywhere it grows, Tempranillo looses acidity faster than it builds sugar at the end of the season. For better or worse, this has limited its utility as a “fruit bomb” style wine. In effect, Tempranillo’s basic character probably disqualified him from ever joining the CaMeZinPiSy hordes. To be sure, more or less round, soft tannin Tempranillos are in the spectrum; wines such as the 2005 St. Amant (Amador County), Tejada Vineyards 2005 (Lake County) and the Red Lily 2003 (Rogue Valley) convey that style admirably.

Other winemakers build to the more full and fruit forward model by Bordeaux-style blending, treating Tempranillo more or less as if it was Medoc Cabernet Sauvignon. The Verdad 2005 (Santa Ynez Valley) and Twisted Oak’s 2006 “The Spaniard” (Calaveras County) are a couple of examples of this approach to crafting a “bigger” wine than Tempranillo might want to give on its own.

From the broad tasting of Tempranillo at the TAPAS event, I think it is fair to say that there is another, perhaps dominant, approach to this variety, right across the North American appellation-terroir spectrum. The obvious reference would be Rioja, and there is no question that the Spanish experience informs much of what these uber-Iberianists aspire to.

This wine profile is bone dry, spicy, smoky, and herbal, with occasional notes of mocha, cedar and tobacco. It is also structured with grainy tannins that want age, wherein such fruitiness as may have been present at crush quickly fades into a complex old spice box experience in the bottle. If this is where your pleasure lobe wants to expand, don’t miss any of these Tempranillo experiences: Abacela 2004 Estate (Southern Oregon), Vina Castellano 2004 (Placer County), Red Lily 2005 (Rogue Valley), Chateau Lorane 2004 (Oregon), Scribner Bend 2004 (Lodi). Speaking for myself, these particular prescriptions also stimulated rapid cell rejuvenation in my memory lobe.

But it’s not all about Tempranillo. Consider the white Albariño, with plantations spotted from Maryland (Black Ankle Vineyards) to Monterey County, where Randle Grahm’s Bonny Doon Vineyard produces a crisp and citrus-zesty number he’s dubbed Ca’ del Solo Albariño. The 2007 Abacela Estate (Southern Oregon) and the Bokisch 2007 (Lodi) fit the same refreshing, food worthy niche with verve! Warning: Albariño, as delicious as these are, may overstimulate the thirst cortex and the yes-please-keep-pouring vocal cords.

Tapas, in the gastronomic mode, are all about diversity and little (sometimes big!) surprises. Similarly, the TAPAS event, with thirty wineries pouring, was a veritable smorgasbord of exciting learning experiences.

Take the Barreto Cellars 2005 Lodi Touriga Naçional, a palate-saturating exploration in dry table wine form of all the richly layered flavors that have always made Port the contemplative restorative. Michael Barreto’s rendering of his 2006 Lodi Verdelho likewise tweaks the memory lobe with reminiscences of the slightly oxidized nuttiness that was the cornerstone of traditional Spanish white wine processing. And then the next tasty little vinous tapas…Fenestra’s 2007 Torrontes (Silvaspoons Vineyard – Lodi) makes a radical turn to the wholly modern fashion of fruit-forward expression with an apricot and spice medley that is sure to excite the sensual nexus zone in any weary oenophile under the age of 125 years.

Last-but-not-leastly, we come to the Franco-Spanish grape variety that, in my personal experience, can be rendered as the most thunderingly boring (even worse than CaMeZinPiSy!) wine possible, OR the most transporting and soul-enriching wine ever, such that it explosively aneurizes across the whole of the cerebellum. Garnacha!

At it’s best, Garnacha is the fruit bomb of the Iberian red lineup. But unlike the Bordeaux variety based fruit bombs, with Garnacha the story is all about red, not black fruit. Bright, not jammy fruit. Happy, scent-infused lightness (often including color), as distinct from brooding, pigment-infused weightiness. The latter begs you to say “Big!”; the former begs nothing, but spontaneously elicits the exclamation, Olay!

For several years I have had the pleasure of drinking and praising Earl Jones’ Abacela Vineyards (Southern Oregon) Garnachas. They exemplify the delightful red fruit model above, though his 2005 rendering seemed on this tasting to be more Tempranillo-like in its complex briar and spiciness, and its age-promising tannin structure. Patience is always rewarded with Abacela wines.

The TAPAS event was a veritable pharmacy of boredom-bashing elixirs. But for its sheer ennui-inhibiting prowess, I have to single out Marcus Bokisch’s 2006 Garnacha (Clement Hills - Lodi). This absolutely perfectly balanced cherry, cinnamon and spice box wine will definitely extend your life of wine enthusiasm.

Let me conclude this exercise in neurological malpractice with one equally scientific observation from the realm of psychology. Diverse wine stimulates interest, and interesting wine makes me feel good! I highly recommend that all my readers not skip any of the varietal and regional “Steps” in this Iberian Program for better mental health.