Some facts about (and thoughts from) Shane Finley, the young winemaker from Bloomington profiled in today’s Liquid Assets column:

*When he was growing up in Bloomington, his parents, Michael and Denise Finley, didn’t drink wine.

*He favors cool-weather syrah. “In warmer areas you’re going to get more monolithic wines with all varietals. In cooler climates you get more nuance.”

*He chooses the sites for his grape sourcing with a couple of specifics in mind. “I’m looking for the pepper, spice, olive, tobacco, the brinier aspects of syrah,” he said. He seeks out “unique areas but also try to make the picking times different.”

*He would like to make Rhone blends, but “grenache and mourvedre plantings are few and far between.”

*He thinks the Bennett Valley (in central Sonoma County) “is what Napa was 20 years ago.”

*He’s a huge advocate of whole clusters (pressing the grapes, or a lot of them, in clusters, without de-stemming). This “gives the wines more tannins and spices and carbonic heft.” More for the viniculturally inclined: He treats his syrahs “like cabernet during fermentation and like pinot in the barrel.”
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