Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Wine & Spirits
This is Jerry Seps’s basic estate zinfandel, and it’s a confident beauty in 2011. The aroma invites you in with hints of roses and herbs, cool red berries and an open spice box of exotic scents. The texture leads you along with silken ease, offering fresh, friendly juice in a supple yet substantial structure. This isn’t complex, but it’s plush and delicious. Decant a bottle for roast quail stuffed with wild mushrooms.
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.