Creating a high-end wine on a bare-bones budget

How do you make a serious wine with a recession-proof price tag?

Easy. Scrimp on your salary. And oh, yeah. Make sure you have a day job.

That’s Tom Garrett’s modus operandi. The co-vintner and head winemaker of Jus Soli is behind our wine-of-the-week winner — Roots Red, 2007 Sonoma County Rhone red with the budget-savvy price of $20.

“How can we offer that price? That’s a good question,” Garrett said, with a laugh. “We have very little overhead. I’m the head winemaker and we don’t really pay ourselves all that well.”

Garrett, who lives in St. Helena, makes the wine at Copain in Santa Rosa, along with making wine full-time at Revana Family Vineyard in St. Helena.

Roots Red is a Rhone blend of syrah, petite sirah and zinfandel, and while it’s concentrated with a good core of fruit, it also has some interesting layered flavors — mineral, herbs and spice.

“The Roots Red was a fun project,” Garrett said. “The focus has been to make the best we can at an affordable price. ... It’s a wine we take very seriously. We take the same approach as we would in making a wine that’s three and four times as expensive.”

This approach, Garrett said, includes sourcing from great vineyards and using — for the most part — highbrow French oak barrels.

The wine grid this week explores Rhone reds — particular blends of varietals like syrah and grenache native to the Rhone region of France or that grow well in a similar climate — to highlight some of the varietals that will be poured at the Rhone Rangers Grand Tasting March 28 in San Francisco. (www.rhonerangers.org)

Garrett said he’s a fan of Rhone reds because they have a big personality and yet the fruit doesn’t dominate it.

“These wines have a great combination of fruit and spice and interesting secondary characteristics with spice, herbs and mineral,” he said. “Rhone wines make interesting, complex wines that can be enjoyed every day.”