Woot Wine : One Week, One Wine (SM)

Some wineries we feature here don’t even have a tasting room. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But we don’t often encounter a winery with its own dungeon, drawbridge, moat, and battlements. Perched imposingly on the side of Diamond Mountain in Napa Valley, Castello di Amorosa wasn’t actually built in the Middle Ages. It was just built using medieval techniques and European stonecrafters. We’re talking cross-vaulted ceilings, brick buttresses, ornate wrought-iron fixtures, and other details you can’t buy at Home Depot.

We have no idea if winemaker Dario Sattui is a closet D&D fiend. But Castello di Amorosa, an offshoot of his successful and acclaimed V. Sattui winery, is a fantasist’s dream. He went back and forth to Italy, modifying his design all the while to make it more and more medieval.

And the same attention to detail is on display in his Castello di Amorosa 2006 Gewürztraminer Anderson Valley, the Italian-bred varietal with the deceptively Teutonic name. It’s a dry white showing off all of the classic Gewürztraminer virtues: spicy clove, lychee, and rose aromas, full body, and concentrated fruit and spice flavors. It’s what the nobility would’ve quaffed with a smoked leg of boar while watching the jousting on Feast Day.

Indeed, Castello di Amorosa’s authenticity even extends to an authentic torture chamber, complete with iron maiden and other instruments of medieval persuasion. So not only is Dario Sattui the first winemaker to feature Gewürztraminer on Wine.Woot, he’s also the first to own a stretching rack.

Of course, it’s only there for atmosphere. Dario lives to make premium Italian-style wines, not to extract confessions from heretics. But still, if you post in our discussion forums, you might want to choose your words carefully this time.