2018 Twisted Oak River of Skulls Mourvèdre, Sierra Foothills
Best Wine of 2018 ~ Phrenological Winos of America
Tasting Notes
With a name like River of Skulls, you know it has to be good… An ankle bone of blackberry aromas is connected to the shin bone of plums and cedar, which connects to the knee bone of caramel and violets (yes, violets). The knee bone is connected to the leg bone of rich black fruit and cinnamon flavors, which connects to the hip bone, backbone, and neck bone of a nice long finish of tobacco with cherry cigars and light smoke. Oh Dem Skulls!
Food pairing? Dead People! - just kidding! How about Lamb, Pork, and Risotto?
Specs
Vintage: 2018
Varietal: 100% Mourvèdre
Appellation: Sierra Foothills
Vineyard: Dalton Vineyards, Angels Camp
Alcohol: 14.3%
2018 Twisted Oak Torcido Garnacha, Sierra Foothills
Tasting Notes
Torcido (Tor-SEE-doh), [SP] adj., 1. Twisted 2. Just like this gnarly Spanish clone Garnacha…
You remember when you were a little kid, and there was this little store round the corner that had a nice man behind the counter who would sell you a big bag of the best candy for a nickel? We don’t either, no one is that old! But if we were that old, this wine might just remind us a little of those days, with floral aromas of raspberry and cherry; and spicy flavors of tart strong fruit - maybe even that funny pepper candy you used to think was yucky - finishing with impressions of 10W30 oil. Whoops, I guess we wandered into the hardware department, but I think you get the idea…
Pairings? Tapas! spicy sausages and salamis - ham - game - pot roast - linguica, sweet fruit sauces - even lamb and goat!
Specs
Vintage: 2018
Varietal: 100% Grenache from the Colina Roja block
Appellation: Sierra Foothills
Alcohol: 14.4%
What’s Included
3-bottles:
2x 2018 Twisted Oak River of Skulls Mourvèdre, Sierra Foothills
1x 2018 Twisted Oak Torcido Garnacha, Sierra Foothills Case:
9x 2018 Twisted Oak River of Skulls Mourvèdre, Sierra Foothills
3x 2018 Twisted Oak Torcido Garnacha, Sierra Foothills
We’re often asked what the background of Twisted Oak is, to which we invariably reply, “The Sierra Nevada, of course!” If we are pressed further, we are forced to admit that Twisted Oak Winery is the culmination of a delusion, er, vision by Jeff and Mary Stai. The vision was of a terroir based winery making superior, hand-crafted, yummy wines, and then having more Twisted fun than anyone in the industry selling them.
Jeff and Mary found 120 acres just outside Murphys in the Sierra Foothills at nearly 2000 feet elevation. It is there that they planted 10 acres of vineyards in Tempranillo, Grenache, Graciano, and Garnacha to take advantage of the continental Mediterranean soil types and climate. It is on top of this property, with an amazing view of the Sierras, where the state-of-the-art, no-pumpover, four-level gravity flow winery was built. When completed in 2004 it included an open tank, stainless steel fermenters along with our own 300-foot barrel cave. This is all under the watchful eye of a 350 year old California Blue Oak tree that not only is our namesake but also adorns every Twisted Oak bottle.
Jeff and Mary work closely with winemaker Scott Klann in crafting the Twisted Oak wines. Scott has been in the wine-making business for over 15 years. Scott’s knowledge of what works best is unmatched in the area (it doesn’t hurt that he was raised in Murphys.) Scott’s experience and personal relationships with the growers in Calaveras County allows Twisted Oak Winery to purchase the best fruit from these outstanding vineyards to complement our estate grape programs. Whatever the formula Jeff, Mary, and Scott, have devised for Twisted Oak, it has been validated by the hundreds of consumers that buy us out of wine each and every year. Twisted Oak Winery has also received accolades by publications and competitions which have graced us with many scores of 90 or above. We think the Wine Enthusiast put it best “The gang at Twisted Oak Winery are taking winemaking in this area to the next level…” Cheers! And always, keep it Twisted! Twisted Oak
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY
Twisted Oak River of Skulls + Torcido Garnacha
3 bottles for $54.99 $18.33/bottle + $2.67/bottle shipping
Case of 12 for $199.99 $16.67/bottle + $1/bottle shipping
@eljefetwisted@kawichris650 Sad to know this will be one, if not the last, offerings from you. Of course I am in. I hope you continue to visit and engage with us. Good luck. You will be missed.
In 1805, Lieutenant Gabriel Moraga was ordered by the Spanish Governor of California to explore the Great Central Valley and to (re)name everything he found. (Old Gabe was probably one of the original red shirt people to beam down to the planet…)
One day Gabe came across a river the banks of which were littered with skulls. No one knows how the skulls came to be there. Perhaps an ancient battle. Or perhaps a really great party gone horribly wrong.
Whatever. Old Gabe, being a true master of the obvious, named this river “El Rio De Las Calaveras” or in English, “The River of Skulls.”
Well, just took delivery of 4 bottles of skulls because I love me some mourvèdre. On the one hand, it was nearly twice the case price but on the other hand all the money went to El Jefe.
How much more are you saving by buying a full case?
(Note: tax and shipping are not included in savings calculations.)
Twisted Oak River of Skulls + Torcido Garnacha - $20 = 9.08%
Bottle arrived and what a sight! The skull stared me down. 100% Mourvèdre from Calaveras County. I popped the cork and poured a little into a Grassl Liberte. Very light ruby. Notes of blackberry and cherry wafted from the glass. Swirled to give it a little air and sniffed again. Ever so slight floral notes. Interesting. I went for the sip. On the palate, those dark fruits came alive like skulls dancing a jig. Slight hint of pepper and tobacco on the finish. My mouth watered from the juiciness. The finish went on and on.
I had a little pita board handy and grabbed the spicy feta dip. Wow. Great combo. Next was a spiced, not spicy, beef Mediterranean wrap. Wonderful. This pairs well with strong flavors. Popped in the cork and left on the counter for the next day.
Day two the wine held up well. No distinct change on the nose or palate. This time I drank the wine on its own. Nice and light. No further palate development.
This is a crowd pleaser. Lush fruits, tannins are resolved, and light enough to not overpower a meal. May hold another five years, but this is lovely now. California fruit comes alive.
Thank you El Jefe, Alice, and the WCC crew.
Cheers!
@ddeuddeg I’ve been considering picking some up myself, I’m more interested in the Mourvèdre than the Garnacha, would you be willing to split 4 & 2 and I could take 5 & 1?
@catcoland Obviously, there’s no way for an even split of 9 bottles, so we’d be happy with having you take 5 of the Skulls. Since there’s been no other response, let’s go ahead with the order. We just need to decide who’s placing the order. We have free shipping, if that helps with the decision.
@catcoland After further contemplation, I don’t want to risk missing out because of a sellout, so I went ahead and placed the order. We can work out the details of getting half to you once it arrives.
@ddeuddeg Thanks for ordering, I was worried about a sellout too! Sorry for the slow reply, I was meeting with some folks. That sounds great, I’ll be happy to split with you and can meet up your way like we’ve done before.
I won’t get to tell this story much any more… so here is the tale of how we got that great skull design for the bottle!
The skull design was painted by my artistic younger son when he was in high school, almost 20 years ago.
Back then, we and some other families we know, went on a two week vacation to Alaska. This included a cruise as well as a train trip from Anchorage to Fairbanks, stopping at Denali on the way. A great trip!
My son, being in high school, had a girlfriend - who insisted that he call her every day while he was away.
Now, if you had a cell phone 20 years ago visiting Alaska, you had “roaming charges” that were a significant cost. Outside of cell service on the boat, phone calls were also not cheap. We warned our son to not make these phone calls because he would have to pay the bill, but of course he went ahead and called her every day.
At the end of the trip we added up all the charges, and… wait for it… he had a phone bill with a comma in it!
So most days after school he came to the winery to work off his massive phone bill. After a while we all got really tired of keeping track, so I said “Son, if you can give me a good skull design for our new River of Skulls, we will call it even on that phone bill.”
And that’s how we got a great skull design for the price of half a phone bill.
Oh, and the punchline? Girlfriend broke up with son two weeks after we got back.
@eljefetwisted it’s a great design! We made the mistake of getting our daughter a cell phone years ago when they charged for texts individually. The detailed phone bill was delivered in a box!
No one has asked the drink-or-hold question yet, so here goes. Predicting the future is always a funny business (just ask Cassandra) but River of Skulls has proven to have great longevity. The 2006 (second vintage produced) I opened a couple weeks ago I was quite delicious but I would say “drink now” for that one. So I’d say the 2018 in this offer has several years it can go, but as always, it would not be a mistake to drink it sooner.
(I’d say the same about the Torcido but I don’t have a recent tasting to refer to. Not one I remember anyway!)
Sierra Foothills is one of my favorite AVAs. Something about the taste and texture of wines from there just speaks to me. Going in for a couple of three packs.
@pmarin Hi. Sorry, was distracted, but yes, we’ve split before. I am also happy to do 1/2 or 1/3. If you don’t mind ordering that would be great and I would be happy to pick-up/venmo.
All those offers from years past…I would be just about ready to hit the buy button. and no Nebraska . Well Nebraska is finally included so in for a couple three packs. never tried twisted oak but I know it’s a favorite of this community so I’m excited to try it.
So sorry for the the delay, had an emergency at work today and then time slipped by me. We had the River of Skulls Mourvedre.
Color: very light brick. clear. appears like a lighter wine.
Nose: red fruits. cherry. cranberry. spices. white pepper. citrus and a really great umami scent that I can’t place. The nose of this wine is captivating. I could hang here for a while.
Taste: high acid, medium- tannins. definitely a food wine. medium finish.
We made Coq au Vin last night and used one glass of the wine in the dish and then drank the wine with the dinner and it was a fantastic pairing.
@jermfish@eljefetwisted@winedavid59 Same here. I took the Torcido Garnacha to a Thanksgiving family dinner and it was undrinkable. I wonder how many others had a similar experience with this wine.
@jermfish@Winedavid59@Zortapa I’m very sorry you got a corked bottle. (I’m hoping more wineries can make the switch to screw caps so we don’t have to worry about this any more.)
@eljefetwisted@winedavid59 Took the River of Skulls to our small neighborhood Halloween gathering - lots of rave reviews, went very quickly. Any chance of this appearing again?
2018 Twisted Oak River of Skulls Mourvèdre, Sierra Foothills
Best Wine of 2018 ~ Phrenological Winos of America
Tasting Notes
Specs
2018 Twisted Oak Torcido Garnacha, Sierra Foothills
Tasting Notes
Specs
What’s Included
3-bottles:
Case:
Price Comparison
Not for sale on winery website, $678/case MSRP
About The Winery
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, WY
Estimated Delivery
Monday, Oct 28 - Tuesday, Oct 29
Twisted Oak River of Skulls + Torcido Garnacha
3 bottles for $54.99 $18.33/bottle + $2.67/bottle shipping
Case of 12 for $199.99 $16.67/bottle + $1/bottle shipping
2018 Twisted Oak River of Skulls Mourvèdre
2018 Twisted Oak Torcido Garnacha
Note the quantity of each bottle. Splitting this offer will be a little tricky.
Oh and for those that don’t already know, Mourvèdre is pronounced mor·veh·druh.
@kawichris650 draw straws?
but you could just get three of either one, or some other mix; jk, not likely to happen again anytime soon
@kawichris650 I prefer to pronounce it Mon-ass-trell but that became legal only a couple years ago.
@eljefetwisted @kawichris650 Sad to know this will be one, if not the last, offerings from you. Of course I am in. I hope you continue to visit and engage with us. Good luck. You will be missed.
@danandlisa @kawichris650 this won’t be the last offering, but yeah it’s definitely a finite resource…
@eljefetwisted @kawichris650 How about mah-TAH-roh?
Hi all. Let’s lead with the story of the river:
In 1805, Lieutenant Gabriel Moraga was ordered by the Spanish Governor of California to explore the Great Central Valley and to (re)name everything he found. (Old Gabe was probably one of the original red shirt people to beam down to the planet…)
One day Gabe came across a river the banks of which were littered with skulls. No one knows how the skulls came to be there. Perhaps an ancient battle. Or perhaps a really great party gone horribly wrong.
Whatever. Old Gabe, being a true master of the obvious, named this river “El Rio De Las Calaveras” or in English, “The River of Skulls.”
Once we get rolling I’ll share the story of the label design, but if you’ve heard it don’t be a spoiler!
/giphy appreciative-odious-witch
Ooh, I wish I ratted this one too. I would’ve written a Halloween story!
@ShotgunX you still can, you have time!
@eljefetwisted Wine fridge is full from a cheap 12-pack offering from meh, and it’s out of budget, unfortunately.
Well, just took delivery of 4 bottles of skulls because I love me some mourvèdre. On the one hand, it was nearly twice the case price but on the other hand all the money went to El Jefe.
@klezman
How much more are you saving by buying a full case?
(Note: tax and shipping are not included in savings calculations.)
Twisted Oak River of Skulls + Torcido Garnacha - $20 = 9.08%
An opportunity to sample some TO in CT - I’m in!
Left side of display rack; El Jefe represented:
Green stuff; Last harvest of 2024
2018 Twisted Oak River of Skulls
Bottle arrived and what a sight! The skull stared me down. 100% Mourvèdre from Calaveras County. I popped the cork and poured a little into a Grassl Liberte. Very light ruby. Notes of blackberry and cherry wafted from the glass. Swirled to give it a little air and sniffed again. Ever so slight floral notes. Interesting. I went for the sip. On the palate, those dark fruits came alive like skulls dancing a jig. Slight hint of pepper and tobacco on the finish. My mouth watered from the juiciness. The finish went on and on.
I had a little pita board handy and grabbed the spicy feta dip. Wow. Great combo. Next was a spiced, not spicy, beef Mediterranean wrap. Wonderful. This pairs well with strong flavors. Popped in the cork and left on the counter for the next day.
Day two the wine held up well. No distinct change on the nose or palate. This time I drank the wine on its own. Nice and light. No further palate development.
This is a crowd pleaser. Lush fruits, tannins are resolved, and light enough to not overpower a meal. May hold another five years, but this is lovely now. California fruit comes alive.
Thank you El Jefe, Alice, and the WCC crew.
Cheers!
This might be it right? Closing shop or closed correct?
@kaolis He foretells a return, you have to un-hide the earliest posts to see it.
@InFrom ahhh…there it is, ty
@InFrom @kaolis There is still a “Twisted Oak Winery” listed for sale on loopnet. At the same times, I’ve really enjoyed their wines.
@kaolis The winery is still technically for sale, but we are closed now for good unless someone here has a rich uncle…
Torcido part of a previous offer
Any WNY area folks interested in splitting a case?
@ddeuddeg I’ve been considering picking some up myself, I’m more interested in the Mourvèdre than the Garnacha, would you be willing to split 4 & 2 and I could take 5 & 1?
@catcoland Obviously, there’s no way for an even split of 9 bottles, so we’d be happy with having you take 5 of the Skulls. Since there’s been no other response, let’s go ahead with the order. We just need to decide who’s placing the order. We have free shipping, if that helps with the decision.
@catcoland After further contemplation, I don’t want to risk missing out because of a sellout, so I went ahead and placed the order. We can work out the details of getting half to you once it arrives.
@ddeuddeg Thanks for ordering, I was worried about a sellout too! Sorry for the slow reply, I was meeting with some folks. That sounds great, I’ll be happy to split with you and can meet up your way like we’ve done before.
@catcoland I completely understand your need to conduct business. We’ll be in touch.
Must show the love for El Jefe and the lovely wines over the years! Will find room for a case.
Cheers!
/giphy animated-accidental-siren
I won’t get to tell this story much any more… so here is the tale of how we got that great skull design for the bottle!
The skull design was painted by my artistic younger son when he was in high school, almost 20 years ago.
Back then, we and some other families we know, went on a two week vacation to Alaska. This included a cruise as well as a train trip from Anchorage to Fairbanks, stopping at Denali on the way. A great trip!
My son, being in high school, had a girlfriend - who insisted that he call her every day while he was away.
Now, if you had a cell phone 20 years ago visiting Alaska, you had “roaming charges” that were a significant cost. Outside of cell service on the boat, phone calls were also not cheap. We warned our son to not make these phone calls because he would have to pay the bill, but of course he went ahead and called her every day.
At the end of the trip we added up all the charges, and… wait for it… he had a phone bill with a comma in it!
So most days after school he came to the winery to work off his massive phone bill. After a while we all got really tired of keeping track, so I said “Son, if you can give me a good skull design for our new River of Skulls, we will call it even on that phone bill.”
And that’s how we got a great skull design for the price of half a phone bill.
Oh, and the punchline? Girlfriend broke up with son two weeks after we got back.
@eljefetwisted it’s a great design! We made the mistake of getting our daughter a cell phone years ago when they charged for texts individually. The detailed phone bill was delivered in a box!
@marjoryk yike!
@eljefetwisted if only that punchline wasn’t so blindingly obvious!
No one has asked the drink-or-hold question yet, so here goes. Predicting the future is always a funny business (just ask Cassandra) but River of Skulls has proven to have great longevity. The 2006 (second vintage produced) I opened a couple weeks ago I was quite delicious but I would say “drink now” for that one. So I’d say the 2018 in this offer has several years it can go, but as always, it would not be a mistake to drink it sooner.
(I’d say the same about the Torcido but I don’t have a recent tasting to refer to. Not one I remember anyway!)
Sierra Foothills is one of my favorite AVAs. Something about the taste and texture of wines from there just speaks to me. Going in for a couple of three packs.
/giphy unobtrusive-premium-vodka
@lionel47 I know what that “something about the taste, etc.” is. It’s just plain damn good.
@ddeuddeg damn straight. I’m considering weathering the slings and arrows of my wife and adding a case to my order.
Anyone in Portland (OR) interested in splitting?
@jfuruno Yes, count me in! I think I’ve shared a case with you before. Either 1/2 or 1/3 if someone else wants to join.
I was worried about shipping within this month (I might be on a trip in November), but says arrives for Halloween so should be OK.
@pmarin Hi. Sorry, was distracted, but yes, we’ve split before. I am also happy to do 1/2 or 1/3. If you don’t mind ordering that would be great and I would be happy to pick-up/venmo.
All those offers from years past…I would be just about ready to hit the buy button. and no Nebraska
. Well Nebraska is finally included so in for a couple three packs. never tried twisted oak but I know it’s a favorite of this community so I’m excited to try it.
So sorry for the the delay, had an emergency at work today and then time slipped by me. We had the River of Skulls Mourvedre.
Color: very light brick. clear. appears like a lighter wine.
Nose: red fruits. cherry. cranberry. spices. white pepper. citrus and a really great umami scent that I can’t place. The nose of this wine is captivating. I could hang here for a while.
Taste: high acid, medium- tannins. definitely a food wine. medium finish.
We made Coq au Vin last night and used one glass of the wine in the dish and then drank the wine with the dinner and it was a fantastic pairing.
How isn’t this sold out?
@klezman There is/was a lot of it…?
NJ finally makes the ship-to list, just as they sail off into the sunset. I’m sure this isn’t a coincidence. Time to buy!
/giphy ill-jumbo-sugarplum
Can’t pass up any of the last of the TO. Thanks for sharing your wines with us El Jefe!
/giphy smoggy-rare-rod
/giphy uncovered-volatile-baseball
Sad I missed this one. let’s see a river of skuls +spainard soon
Opened the Garnacha yesterday, but it was corked. I kept it to see if the funk would blow off, but it didn’t improve. I hope the Mourvèdre is better.
@jermfish @eljefetwisted @winedavid59 Same here. I took the Torcido Garnacha to a Thanksgiving family dinner and it was undrinkable. I wonder how many others had a similar experience with this wine.
@eljefetwisted @jermfish @Zortapa oh no!
@jermfish @Winedavid59 @Zortapa I’m very sorry you got a corked bottle. (I’m hoping more wineries can make the switch to screw caps so we don’t have to worry about this any more.)
@eljefetwisted @winedavid59 Took the River of Skulls to our small neighborhood Halloween gathering - lots of rave reviews, went very quickly. Any chance of this appearing again?
@ctmariner El Jefe might be able to hook you up directly. I think you can find his info on the TO website.