History
The 2005 vintage in Dry Creek featured a picture-perfect ripening season—warm and extended—which produced one of our most classic Dry Creek zinfandel blends. Dry Creek zinfandels are famous for their balance of fruit, spice, and velvety texture, and our 2005 Dry Creek zin is a great example of that style. The wine is extremely dark, with flavors of black raspberry, chocolate, clove spice, and floral hints of violets and lavender. With its rich, velvety texture and long, complex finish, this is certain to be one of our most popular Dry Creek Valley zinfandels.
Production
We used our special custom-made gridded tanks to ferment the wines. These tanks, outfitted with stainless-steel grids that can be raised or lowered on top of the crushed grapes, allow us to submerge the cap of grape skins beneath the surface of the fermenting wine. We extract color, body, and complexity from the grapes, using these grids, without extracting too much of the drying tannins found in the seeds. The result are intense and complex wines that feel velvety and round on the tongue rather than harsh or tannic.
As is our tradition, we conduct the fermentation using only the natural yeast population on the grapes. During fermentation the temperature was allowed to get above 90º F, to aid in the extraction of color and flavor. At dryness, the wine was gently pressed in a membrane press and pumped to small, 60-gallon barrels.
The wine was aged for 14 months in a mixture of French oak and American oak barrels. Every three months we racked the wine out of barrel to clarify the wine and aid in its development. In our blending trials, we added small amounts of petite syrah (for structure and aging potential).
Production Notes
Varietals: 95% Zinfandel, 5% Petite Sirah
Appellation: Dry Creek Valley,Sonoma County
Alcohol: 14.5 % by vol.
Time in oak: 14 months
Oak: 30% French & 70% American; 18% new
Production: 4927 cases, 750mL
224 cases, 375mL
Release date: February 1, 2007
Sugg. retail price: $22.00 bottle, 750mL
$12.00 bottle, 375mL
Optimum time for consumption: 2007-2013
Tasting Notes
Color: Purple-black.
Aroma: Floral aromas of lavender, violets, mixed with black raspberry, chocolate, dusty/mineral, lavender, clove, and black pepper.
Taste: Black raspberry, cassis, chocolate, clove spice, thick and velvety texture on the mid-palate, long sweet finish of black raspberry fruit, sweet chocolate and spice.
