Stagiaire, "Still Life with Hillside" 2022

The Hillside vineyard Zinfandel was planted in the 70s… on a hillside… over the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas near Talmadge.  These dry farmed and head trained vines stand stalwartly on their slope, soaking up the mendocino sun, free to bend as the  wind wills them and reach wherever their arms see fit. Working with this variety is so exciting and stimulating to me, as it feels  like it belongs to California more so than most other varieties, so to experiment and craft wines with this material that so many  other winemakers have wielded is humbling and grounding. 

Whole clusters steeped in direct pressed juice for four weeks. No punchdowns or pumpovers. Just loving hands, tenderly  pressing the cap down just low enough for the juice below to soak the grapes skins that have floated to the top. Allowing  whatever is in the skins to be freely given to the must rather than forcibly extracting it. After fermentation, it aged in neutral  puncheons and barrels for 9 months. 

Strawberries and strawberry jam. Watermelon candy. Touch of spices like clove and cinnamon. These bright flavors balanced  with just enough bitterness to lengthen the wine and keep it from being one of those glouglous. Chaparral. Lavender. Dandelion  root. A first date. Maybe the first one you’ve been on in a while. It’s going really well and you are already visualizing the rest of your life with this person. You tell yourself to calm down even though you don’t want to. 

This is the only red wine from 2022 that I feel ok with releasing right now. The others will all be in a much better place at the  end of the year. This one will too, I’m sure, but it is perfectly charming as it is now. I encourage holding a bottle though for 6-12  more months though if you are as enamored by it as I currently am."