Winemaker Notes
This rich and full-bodied Zinfandel is graced with an elegant structure and richly nuanced flavors of blackberries and ripe cherries. A subtle waft of roasted coffee beans and lightly toasted almonds entwines with soft raspberries in a luxuriously long and persistent finish. This food-friendly wine pairs beautifully with a wide array of dishes, such as sausage pizza, grilled shish-kabobs or roasted rack of lamb.
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2017 Grgich Hills Estate Zinfandel is sturdy and long on the palate. TASTING NOTES: This wine explodes with persistent berries in its aromas and flavors. Enjoy its packed presence with well-seasoned pork kababs. (Tasted: June 9, 2020, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine & Spirits
A heady and satisfying Zin, this takes ripe cherry favors toward forest-berry and spruce scents, before tannins shade the fruit in notes of leather and wood. It’s floral and formidably rich, needing another year or two of bottle age, or several hours in a decanter before dinner with roast lamb.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium to deep garnet-purple colored and blended with 5% Petite Sirah, the 2017 Zinfandel offers up intense baked raspberries, blackberry preserves and kirsch scents with hints of baking spices, dusty soil, dried herbs and potpourri. Full-bodied with a firm, chewy texture and refreshing acidity, it has plenty of spicy red and black preserves with an earthy finish.
Undoubtedly proving its merit over and over, Napa Valley is a now a leading force in the world of prestigious red wine regions. Though Cabernet Sauvignon dominates Napa Valley, other red varieties certainly thrive here. Important but often overlooked include Merlot and other Bordeaux varieties well-regarded on their own as well as for their blending capacities. Very old vine Zinfandel represents an important historical stronghold for the region and Pinot noir is produced in the cooler southern parts, close to the San Pablo Bay.
Perfectly situated running north to south, the valley acts as a corridor, pulling cool, moist air up from the San Pablo Bay in the evenings during the hot days of the growing season, which leads to even and slow grape ripening. Furthermore the valley claims over 100 soil variations including layers of volcanic, gravel, sand and silt—a combination excellent for world-class red wine production.