NEWS
Beat the Heat
Beat the Heat Summer Shipping
Special
Summertime is always a great time for enjoying wine!
But here at Dashe we know that with the heat, it’s not
always the best time to ship wine, unless
you’re willing to pay for two-day air. To help get our wines to their
rightful home on your patio by the barbecue or on the table in your
air-conditioned dining room, we are pleased to offer our Beat the Heat Summer Shipping
Special. From now through August, you’ll receive half-price two-day air shipping on any order of six bottles or
more.
Here’s how it works…
Simply visit our online wine
shop, place an order for six bottles or more to a single address
anywhere in the United States, and select the two-day air shipping option. The
price you will be quoted online will not reflect your half-price shipping
discount, but we promise the discount
will be credited on your final receipt.
We invite you to explore our portfolio of wines by clicking here. We offer a wide
range of perfect summer wines—from the refreshing minerality of our Dry
Riesling, to the graceful elegance of our Les Enfants Terribles wines (just
like complex Beaujolais Grand Crus) to the richness of our single-vineyard
Zinfandels. Enjoy the summer!
Quarterly Review of Wines

Best of the Best: California Zinfandels
“There’s only one word for these 16: zin-tillating.
Zinfandel is California’s most individualized red wine, with an exuberant
character all its own. The following wines -16 of them from the superb 2007
vintage – are top-flight examples of California ‘Zin.’ We can’t recommend them enough.”
2007 Dashe Cellars Florence
Vineyard Zinfandel
“Plush, pure, silky, elegantly knit, wild berry,
chocolate and spice flavors.”
2007 Dashe Cellars Louvau Vineyard Old Vines
Zinfandel
“Big, deep, rich, well-concentrated, black fruit, mocha
and toasty oak flavors.”
2007 Dashe Cellars Todd Brothers Ranch Old Vines
Zinfandel
“Rich, ripe, round, juicy, elegantly knit, black fruit,
mocha and oak vanillin flavors.”
Five-Star
California Zinfandels
“Wines of
extraordinary character and quality-in a class by themselves.”
-Summer 2010
Snooth.com

Dashe Cellars - Mastering Old Vine Zinfandel
Producing great Riesling and Late Harvest Zin
I was fortunate to share a meal with Mike Dashe -- and several of his wines -- some seven or so years ago. A mutual friend arranged the little soiree here in New York City and introduced me to these lovely wines that highlight the luscious fruit of old vine Zinfandel, but manage to avoid the worst excesses that usually accompany the breed: excessive alcohol, over-ripe pruny flavors, and flabbiness.
The fact that these wines show such poise and definition should come as no surprise; Mike learned a thing or two during his stint at Ridge Vineyards, as assistant winemaker to Paul Draper, no less. The wines Mike produces today share much with the famed Ridge Zins. They may no longer be called Zinfandel, but Geyserville and Lytton Springs will always be Zins to me.
What to expect: Zinfandel
Zinfandel is considered America's own great, indigenous grape, even though its origins lay on the Adriatic coast. Planted throughout California and the Pacific Northwest, Zinfandel is at its best in warm regions with cooler temperatures during harvest. The wines can range from off-dry Rosés (White Zinfandel) and light, bistro-styled wines to big, rich powerful wines - even luscious wines for dessert bottlings. The flavors range from plummy to raspberry, although deep blackberry fruit and brambly spice tones are most common.
Explore Zinfandel
The Dashe style, while echoing that of Ridge, shows an obvious evolution. Gone is the American oak, replaced by a judicious use of French oak. The wines generally show a bit more restraint than the best of the Ridge wines, yielding more focus and elegance in the mouth. That elegance and restraint might just be the influence of Mike’s wife, Anne, a trained oenologist with a background that includes time spent at both St. Emilion’s Chateaux la Dominique as well as Chappellet and Seavey in the Napa Valley.
The couple founded Dashe Cellars in 1996 with a shared vision: To craft elegant, layered wines from great vineyards using time-honored techniques. To this day Mike and Anne continue to produce their wines using indigenous yeasts, little or no fining or filtering, and the attention to detail only a small-scaled winery can achieve.
The wines move from strength to strength with each passing year, and while Dashe remains under the radar, they deserve all the attention they get. These are wines, the Zins in particular, that preserve a part of California’s vinous heritage. Zinfandel is undergoing a renaissance of sorts. While it lacks the glamour and cachet of Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir, and thus the prices those wines realize, it is truly California’s own.
Yes, it may be Primitivo -- but Primitivo does not taste like classic California Zinfandel. Zinfandel is a treasure that has been perverted over the years. First by White Zinfandel -- and I thank God for White Zinfandel, which saved countless acres of old vines -- and then by a style of winemaking that forced everything out of each grape, even some things we didn’t really want or need.
The Dashe style is one that finds the happy medium that allows for wines to be super expressive and eminently drinkable at the same time. It’s no surprise that I like the wines, what may be surprising is how damn good their dry Riesling is! You have to love these wines; I mean, who else has a monkey riding a whale on their labels?
And since we are talking about the unusual here, I urge you all to try and find a bottle of the Dashe L’enfant Terrible Zinfandel. This cult wine, and it really is about as culty as they come, is Zinfandel as a French or Italian farmer might make it, bright fruits over earthy tones with no discernable oak influence.
In 2008, production was way down due to rain during flowering, adding to the culty nature of this wine since it’s now almost impossible to find; if you track a bottle down, you must try it. If you can’t, keep on the watch for the release of the 2009. L’enfant Terrible is a uniquely wonderful wine, and one that will help solidify Dashe’s reputation as a great American winery.
McFadden Farms, Potter valley 13.8%
This has some immediate and penetrating aromatics. It smells a bit leesy at first, then it offers up intense yellow apple, peach, floral, and sharp, granitic mineral tones with a hint of salt and a tiny hint of garlic chive. On entry this is fun and rich, profoundly so considering it's completely dry. The fruit is cut by mineral tones; a touch more acidity would not be a bad thing. It’s full of apple, and subtle unripe pineapple flavors that yield to more minerality and soft dried mango and earthy notes on the long finish with just a whisper of icy mint on the finale. A really lovely effort that combines a rich mouthfeel with attractive minerality. This would work very well with oily white fish like swordfish or mackerel. 92pts
Dry Creek Valley 14.6%
This has a bit of fuminess to it at first and needs time to gain some focus, but it reveals dark chocolate-streaked, pepper-laced dark berry fruit touched with sapwood and smoky, loamy earth. It’s surprisingly light on the palate with more than a bit of tannin to lose, but features wonderfully refreshing and pure, slightly spicy, briary black raspberry fruit that offers up hints of orange oil and baking spice on the backend. The finish allows the tannins to creep back up, giving this excellent follow-through with the toasty vanilla of the oak being covered with cool, wild red berry fruit until the spicy finale. Give this two years to let the tannins soften and drink it over the next five or so, or else grill up some beef and enjoy this for all it offers today. 92pts
Dry Creek Valley 14.8%
This has a very fine nose, real brambly blackberry and black cherry fruit with a touch of plum and licorice, a bit meaty with a nice savory hoisin note tightly wound up in the fruit. This is a big wine on entry with lots of glycerin and richness but almost immediately it gains snap and focus. The tannins here are abundant but quite fine, and the acidity is floating just under the fruit. The flavors are dark and just a bit dusky with plum, caramel, earth, licorice, and a hint of mint all in balance on the mid-palate. The backend offers nice lift to the fruit, which floats off on the long finish. This is spicy on the backend but surprisingly lightweight with black fruit notes and a licorice, leathery savory tone on the finale. A bit of a tight showing but this promises to flesh out and soften a bit with time in the bottle, remaining elegant but gaining breadth in the mouth. I can see this working well with pork in chipotle sauce. 90pts
2008 Dashe Late Harvest Zinfandel
Dry Creek Valley 14.9%
This has a huge nose with top notes of violets over deep black plum, slight prune, and spicy hints of chocolate and vanilla with a core of savory elements that recall herbal, dried black olives. Lightly sweet on entry this has plenty of acidity to keep the wine lively and lovely ripe tannins that help break up the sweetness. It’s a light, fresh style of dessert wine with a balance akin to fresh fruit making it easy to drink. It’s a bit simpler on the palate than on the nose, but is full of briary, tobacco-edged plummy and dried berry fruit that yields to a lightly sweet finish balanced by drying tannins. 91pts
The Corkdork
I have to tell the world about this wine. Mike and Anne Dashe have made a Zinfandel that sits firmly within the French natural wine movement. This is everything Zinfandel is usually not --low alcohol (13.8%) lightly sulfured, organic, lightly colored, unfiltered, un-jammy...it's a beautiful departure from what we've all come to think of as Zinfandel. What's just as remarkable is that Dashe sometimes makes some much bigger Zins, like the always wonderful Todd Brothers Ranch but is willing to put out something so different. Kudos!
The grapes come from Potter Valley in Mendocino County, grown organically amongst white wine vines. Guiness McFadden has been growing in this area since 1970 and has 23 beautiful acres.
In the glass, the color is bright, light red. You might guess this was Gamay, not Zin.
On the nose, it's peppery and floral with a nice hit of cherry.
In the mouth, it's supple and fine but with a light touch. The lower alcohol and judicious sulfur additions make it super clean and quaffable. Highly recommended.
Vinography.com
The Best Zinfandels in California: Tasting at ZAP 2010
With a line snaking halfway around the parking lot by 2:00 PM, it might be easy to say that Zinfandel might be one of the more recession proof wines in California. The fact that very good bottles can be had for about $20 certainly means that there's probably a lot more Zinfandel being consumed these days than, say, Meritage blends. Read more
WINES WITH A SCORE AROUND 9.5
2007 Dashe Cellars "Florence Vineyard" Dry Creek Valley. $32.
WINES SCORING BETWEEN 9 AND 9.5
2007 Dashe Cellars "Todd Brothers Ranch Old Vines" Alexander Valley. $32
2007 Dashe Cellars "Louvau Vineyard" Dry Creek Valley. $32
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