Winemaker Notes
Brambly and dark chocolate covered black cherries and plummy notes, that show case a touch of grilled meats and clay pot aromas. The palate is deep, rich and extraordinarily endowed from the front of the palate to the richness of the mid palate and finish. Black cherry and freshly crushed black and red peppercorns are the high light with chocolate and vanilla bean notes. A total sensorial experience!
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2015 Zinfandel Cassatta Vineyard is another Sonoma Valley release. This beauty leads with its fruit and offers loads of currants, plums, blueberry, and earthy spice characteristics, full body, a rounded, voluptuous style, and beautiful purity. It gains complexity with time in the glass and, as with all of Jeff's wines, it's beautifully balanced.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium to deep garnet-purple in color, the 2015 Zinfandel Cassata Vineyard opens with expressive kirsch, stewed plums and baked blackberry scents plus nuances of dried herbs, cardamom, cloves, incense and fertile soil. Full-bodied, rich and boldly fruited in the mouth, it has a grippy frame and just enough freshness to lift the spice-laced fruit to a nice long finish.
Unapologetically bold, spice-driven and jammy, Zinfandel has secured its title as the darling of California vintners by adapting well to the state's diverse microclimates and landscapes. Born in Croatia, it later made its way to southern Italy where it was named Primitivo. Fortunately, the imperial nursery of Vienna catalogued specimens of the vine, and it later made its way to New England in 1829. Parading the true American spirit, Zinfandel found a new home in California during the Gold Rush of 1849. Somm Secret—California's ancient vines of Zinfandel are those that survived the neglect of Prohibition; today these vines produce the most concentrated, ethereal and complex examples.
Perhaps the most historically significant appellation in Sonoma County, the Sonoma Valley is home to both Buena Vista winery, California's oldest commercial winery, and Gundlach Bundschu winery, California's oldest family-run winery.
It is also one of the more geologically and climactically diverse districts. The valley includes and overlaps four distinct Sonoma County sub-appellations, including Carneros, Moon Mountain District, Sonoma Mountain and Bennett Valley. With mountains, benchlands, plains, abundant sunshine and the cooling effects of the nearby Pacific, this appellation can successfully produce a wide range of grape varieties. Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Gewürztraminer, and most notably, Zinfandel all thrive here. Ancient Zinfandel vines over 100 years old produce small crops of concentrated, spicy fruit, which in turn make some of the Valley's most unique wines. These can also be made as “field blends” (wines made from a mix of grape varieties grown in the same vineyard) along with Petite Sirah, Carignan and Alicante Bouschet.