Tempest Sol Winery

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Tempest in part means a furious agitation, commotion, or tumult; an uproar. Shakespeare’s King Lear must have had a bad hair day when he stated,
The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else
Save what beats there. King Lear, Act III, scene IV

The Spanish word sol means sun and in the context of Tempest Sol Winery connotes an agitated sun with solar flares reaching out to the universe releasing humongous stores of magnetic energy. There is also a worship-like meaning associated with the winery’s name as if we are to have an orgy of celebration drinking boatloads of wine and tipping our goatskin bag of wine to Dionysus. Perhaps we’re celebrating the harvest, the death of the vine in winter or it’s rebirth in the spring, but the sun is the source of energy for photosynthesis and all things green and it is only fitting that a winery incorporates sol in its name.

To carry this sun-thing further, Italian, Galileo Galilei wrote, “Wine is sunlight, held together by water.” Smart man, that Galileo. At least we know that he was over 80% correct because most wine is also 12 to 16% alcohol by volume. So H2O (water) meets C2H6O (ethanol) and you add some flavoring in the form of polyphenolic compounds, some tannin and flavors and you get wine. Fortunately, it’s a lot more complicated than that otherwise scientists would have developed synthetic wine without the need for grapes. What a boring world that would be!

Winemaker Gus White has an appreciation for things steeped in Greek mythology. Exhibit alpha is his use of Greek names for his wines including Eos and Helios. Exhibit beta is his use of a grape variety named Aglianico that Italian-wine devotees associate with Aglianico del Vulture (the extinct volcano mountain in Italy’s Basilicata region). However, the grape originated in Greece and transplanted to Italy long before the birth of Christ. This is a bold wine with pronounced pie cherry and earthy flavors possessing lots of tannin and acidity perfect for cellaring for long periods. After you sample this wine, you might wonder as I do why we don’t see this wine more often. For that, maybe we need to head to Mount Olympus and ask Zeus what’s up with that.