Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Zinfandel Rockpile is medium garnet-purple colored and delivers notions of blackberry pie, dried lavender, mocha and mincemeat pie with touches of menthol and dried herbs. The palate is full-bodied and built like a brick house with firm, grainy tannins and a racy line supporting the densely packed, muscular fruit, finishing very long and very spicy.
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Jeb Dunnuck
From an AVA located just to the north of the Dry Creek Valley, the 2015 Zinfandel Rockpile checks in as 100% Zinfandel (most wines from this estate are blends) that spent 14 months in 15% new French oak. It has a darker, plummy, spice and scorched earth-driven bouquet, medium to full body, a broad, expansive texture, and remarkable elegance and purity. It's another terrifically balanced, high-class Zinfandel from this estate that should keep for upwards of a decade.
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Wine & Spirits
This wine’s scents of gunflint, pu-erh tea and roses emerge out of its tense tannins, their mineral intensity driving the sweet red fruit flavors. It’s spunky, spicy and bright, with the nonchalant beauty of fruit picked at the right time. Deliciously rustic, this would be a great match for roast baby goat.
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Wine Spectator
Plump and polished but intensely structured, with floral wild berry and orange peel aromas and richly layered black raspberry, mocha and pepper flavors. Drink now through 2026.
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.
High elevation vineyards—800 to 2,100 feet—on well-drained soils of red and brown clay loam, gravel and large rock outcroppings produce low yields of intense, high-quality fruit. Surrounded by Northern Sonoma County and overlapping Dry Creek Valley in its northwest corner, the Rockpile AVA produces some of California most powerful Zinfandel, Petit Sirah, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon based wines.