Tasting Notes:This wine has floral hints of jasmine and lavender, underscored by aromas of dried fruit (apricot, plums), cassis, chocolate, vanilla.
On the palate you will notice quite sweet black raspberry and black currant flavors, mixed with plum, dried apricot, and hints of cherry, chocolate, and vanilla. The explosive fruit is balanced with nice acidity, making the wine sweet but not cloying—an ideal dessert wine.
Winemaking Notes:Late Harvest Zinfandel is always an adventure to ferment. The grapes arrived at the winery just over 40° Brix, and they were just what you want for Late Harvest: wrinkled, but not raisined. We crushed the grapes to a small 1,500-gallon tank. As is our tradition, we let the fermentation proceed using the native yeasts on the grapes. The fermentation went exceptionally well, and the yeast naturally finished fermentation when the alcohol had reached about 14.1 percent and the sugar level was 9 percent.
The wine was aged in older French oak barrels, so as not to overpower the intensity of the zinfandel fruit. During our blending trials, we decided to stay with our tradition of bottling the wine as soon as possible to maintain its fresh fruit flavors and conserve its lovely sweet concentration and purity. The wine is unfined and received minimal handling to the bottle.
Vintage Notes:Without a doubt this is one of our most popular wines, and we’ve increased the quantity we made in 2005 to keep up with the demand. The vintage was perfect in 2005 to make a very balanced Late Harvest zinfandel; it’s one of our favorites. We let these grapes hang on the vine over a month after the rest of the grapes were picked, to concentrate flavors and sugar. Since it was such a late harvest, we finally harvested the grapes to create this black, intense essence of zinfandel in early November, just before the rains.
Technical Notes: | Appellation: | Dry Creek Valley |
| Varietal: | Zinfandel 100% |
| Harvest: | 05 November |
| Alcohol: | 14.1% |
| Brix: | 40 |
| RS: | 9% |
| Production: | 586 (cases) |