Issue XVII: Atrea Old Soul Red Edition

Atrea Old Soul Red [Blend]

The HSC is constantly monitoring and searching for additions to the list and during the genesis, much of the research was online. As I’ve noted before, while we’re not afraid to buy a wine based on the label, it’s always good to have a few pointers to names you might otherwise miss. In this case, one of the weekly rags here asked a number of chefs which wine under $20 they would buy. This name (and another that will be in a future installment) came up and though both of them are pushing that $20 limit (we like to pretend here at the HSC that tax does not exist, just as that particular article did), they both also fall under and so qualify.

Atrea, a division of the usually very impressive Saracina winery, has a very tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, as evidenced by its “Skid Rose’” wine but also has a nice sense of the refined, with its “The Choir” white blend and this one, so named for “a complexity and maturity beyond its years.” They also have a very distinct labeling system, which though a bit plain and basic, does enable them to be easily distinguishable from literally everything else around them.

In many ways, this wine was a revelation to me, as it truly illustrated the power, fine finesse and taste possible in a blend, a category to which I’d previously paid scant, if any, attention. To give you an idea how this has shifted, blends are probably right near the top of my favorite. I also formerly thought France was the only wine-producing region that mattered and now find Italy to be more my favorite, though the region with the most names on the list is California.

That aside, what we have here is a blend of Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Malbec and Syrah, percentages varying by year. If you’re thinking this means a fairly dense wine leaning towards the heavier side, you’d be right, but with the Malbec and Syrahs, it never becomes overbearingly so. Where this really points up the best of what blends can be is in drinkability. This can either be consumed at the time (what we usually do) or stored. It is a very well-balanced wine in all respects, not super-smooth, but not especially rough, either and it requires very little airing time, comparatively. If you’re not sold on blends, one bottle of this and you’ll be a believer.

As noted, a bottle of this is pushing right against that $20 ceiling. I have never seen this particular brand or any of the variations, including this, on SPA, ever, which precludes it from SPA Only. With that kind of price point, it also makes it difficult to tag as a Standard, so by process of elimination, this comes in as a Mixed. I try to get in a bottle of this here and there as it is such a strong addition to any rotation.