YEAR'S BEST ZINFANDEL

 

94 | Dashe 2018 Dry Creek Valley Florence Vineyard Zinfandel $42

Jack Florence planted this vineyard in 2002 with cuttings from his Rockpile Ranch. It’s a selection of the St. Peter’s Church clone planted in rocky riverbed soils, yielding small-berried fruit that Mike Dashe ferments with ambient yeasts before aging the wine in neutral French oak barrels. Those tiny berries give the wine its complex fruit-skin spice, while their tannins layer on sappy vine-root scents. Cool and bright, the fruit has dynamic energy and the kind of simple, glorious pleasure that zin can give when grown in the right place. —J.G. (78 cases)

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90 | Dashe 2018 Alexander Valley Old Vines Todd Brothers Ranch Zinfandel $42

Grown on iron-rich volcanic soils, these bush vines produced concentrated fruit for a wine with youthful intensity. Scents of purple fruit and roses come up as the pungent cranberry and apple-skin acidity begins to relent, the wine needing several years in the cellar to come into its own. —J.G. (223 cases)

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93 | Dashe 2018 Eagle Peak Les Enfants Terribles Heart Arrow Ranch Zinfandel $32 

Mike Dashe lists this wine among the “light reds” in his production and, at 13.5 percent alcohol, it is significantly lighter than most contemporary zins. Its strength is in the evocation of a place. It grows in Redwood Valley, part of the Eagle Peak AVA established in 2014. Golden Vineyards owns the 1,000-acre ranch, where it limits the vineyard parcels to 60 acres, the farming certified biodynamic. Dashe ferments the wine as whole berries with some whole clusters and without added yeasts, then ages it in a 900-gallon French oak barrel, bottling with limited sulfur. It tastes as if the yeasts have consumed only enough of the whole berries that the structure and shape of the grape is still intact, allowing light to shine through the skin. Those skins hold bright tannins, thriving with energy, providing thorns to the rose scents and iron to the dark plum and pomegranate flavors. A bottle will go fast as it’s a wine to make you smile. —J.G. (373 cases)

Click Here for the 2018 Zinfandel, Heart Arrow Ranch 'Les Enfant Terribles'