2004 Agharta
Evolved aromas of roasted earth, dried leather and meat jus immediately emerge from the surface of this opaque liquid. Eventually fruit aromas respond to your coaxing and tiny currants, the ripest blackberries and the densest of blue fruits fill out the darker more evolved aromas of leather and tar. The wine is thick and immediately mouth coating with a very richly textured and immensely concentrated sensation of fruit and spice. The secondary aromas of delicate white flowers, black summer truffles and dark roasted coffee highlight the fruit as the wine unfolds in your mouth. This wine isn’t noticeably oaky or excruciatingly tannic or seemingly sweet, it is just all kind of ‘there’ composed and finely knit together in a very decadent glass of wine.

Winery note:

If you are reading this invitation, you have been chosen to enter the surreal realm that is Agharta.

Agharta is a unique group of wines that by the time they reach your table will have been aged in French Oak barrels for extended lengths of time. Quite obviously this project has been in the making for many years now and has been called almost as many names.

Originally the 2004 Agharta that we are offering for purchase today was meant to be a continuation of a wine that I made in 2002 & 2003, called Pangea. The first two vintages of that wine were such a tremendous success, the next installment needed to make a statement. After discussions with many people that have been influential to me, and my wine-making, I came to the conclusion that extended barrel aging would accomplish my goal. I was convinced that the 2004 vintage had delivered the goods, so I selected the most textured and complete barrels and all I had to do was wait...and wait I did...the 2004 Agharta ended up spending 58 months in barrel.

Throughout the years many visitors to the winery were given a taste of this wine. Word spread and eventually, to my surprise, the rumor of this elixir started to exist in underground circles. Based purely on the word of mouth accounts of friends, colleagues and customers that had tasted it, this wine developed a following before it really even existed. And it almost didn’t…

My working title for this wine had always been C36 or Cuvee 36, meaning I was going to age the wine in barrel for a minimum of 36 months. Due to the risky nature of this process and the open-ended and undetermined length of elevage, it seemed best to keep it a secret. Another safeguard was to select a diverse selection of barrels from as many different parcels as possible and to select more barrels than I may eventually need. This would offer greater flexibility in building the final blend, assuming that we may ‘lose’ a percentage of the barrels to spoilage along the way. Interestingly the barrels from Alder Springs Vineyard proved to be the most captivating. These barrels also proved to remain the freshest and Alder Springs will continue for that very reason to be the primary source of grapes for this project for the foreseeable future.

The twisting plot that was the evolution of this project started to remind me of a piece of music history that I was very fond of. Miles Davis, the man who epitomized cool, recorded two of his most controversial and to many of us his greatest ever recorded live performances of modern jazz. They just happened to take place on the very same day, February 1, 1975 in Osaka, Japan. Pangaea was the big event which was recorded and released by a major record label, but it was a rarely heard daytime performance that the people in the know raved about. Eventually word spread about this performance that had apparently captured the band before the travel, illnesses and overindulgences had caught up with them later that evening. This ‘underground’ recording was nicknamed Agharta by Miles in reference to the mythical subterranean society that welcomed only the enlightened few to enter its magical realm. Agharta the recording was eventually released, and boy was it worth the wait.

According to legend, Agharta is an underground network of colonies illuminated by a smoky central sun. The hidden entrances are said to be under mountains, at the bottom of deep lakes and in the center of vast deserts. The capital city of Shamballa, or 'place of peace', is said to have hills of gold and rivers that flow with wine. I thought that this great little story was just crazy enough for these just crazy enough wines.

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