ForestVille Vineyard - Bronco Wine Company

2009
B est of S how • D essert 2009
B est V alue 2009
Quady Winery
ForestVille Vineyard
2006 California Zinfandel ($6)
2007 California Black Muscat
Elysium ($16.99)
By Mike Dunne
When Andrea Beltran began to make wines at
Bronco Wine Co. in the San Joaquin Valley town
of Ceres two years ago, her boss, chief winemaker
Ed Moody, instructed her to create the sorts of
wines she likes to drink.
She took him at his word, and in blending
her first zinfandel she grabbed from Bronco’s
vast spice rack a little bit of the Central Valley’s
vineyard workhorse, ruby cabernet, along with
dashes of primitivo and petite sirah.
“I’m a big fan of petite sirah,” Beltran says. “It
brings more color and more spice to the wine.”
It also helped bring to the wine, the ForestVille
Vineyard 2006 California Zinfandel, the 2009
California State Fair award for best value. Not
bad for a first effort, especially by someone
who got her degree in nutrition science, not
viticulture or enology.
As one of numerous brands owned by Bronco,
ForestVille shows up on wines stocked largely by
supermarkets and neighborhood grocery stores,
where they are meant to appeal to shoppers who
want an amiable wine to accompany the ground
beef or chicken breast they will prepare simply for
dinner that evening.
The zinfandel, as other ForestVille wines, are
shaped in a youthful and smoothly refreshing
style, with a freshness fitting for a glass as an
aperitif as well as with a backbone to support the
graceful fruit when it is paired with food.
The wine is 76 percent zinfandel, the balance
primitivo (9 percent), petite sirah (3 percent) and
unspecified “mixed red” varieties (12 percent),
largely ruby cabernet, Beltran says.
Primitivo, which DNA analysis shows to be
genetically identical to zinfandel, yields a wine
similar in flavor and structure to zinfandel, which
is why Beltran worked it into the blend, thereby
reinforcing the wine’s blackberry fruitiness and
black-pepper spiciness.
The juice was fermented in stainless steel, then
stirred with oak chips to give the final wine a hint
of vanilla and a suggestion of complexity.
While most of the fruit that went into the wine
was grown at Lodi, vineyards about Bakersfield
48
C A L I F O R N I A S TAT E F A I R
and in Stanislaus and Madera counties also
contributed to the blend.
The most fantastic deep magenta color ever seen in Elysium is due in
part to new vineyard practices of excessive leaf pulling and cane cutting
on the north side of the vineyards. This practice increases the sunlight
underneath the canopy, also adding to more of a red fruit and litchi
aroma than in the past years. All dessert wines are best if served slightly
chilled. An excellent way to achieve this is by storing the wine in the
refrigerator, then removing the wine before dinner. By dessert time, the
wine will be at the perfect temperature. 1
Beltran made 5,000 cases of the zinfandel, which
weighs it with an easily accessible 13.45 percent
alcohol.
She’s proud of her first zinfandel, not only for
the State Fair award but for the role the wine
can play at the dinner table - an easy-drinking
red wine with the substance and spunk to
accompany smoky grilled foods.
Beltran has been with Bronco just five years.
After earning her degree in nutrition science
at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, she first went
to work in the winery’s analytical lab, then
became an assistant winemaker before assuming
responsibility for the ForestVille wines in 2007.
(Though the making of the zinfandel began
in 2006, the blend she orchestrated wasn’t
completed until 2008.)
A native Californian, Beltran grew up at
Patterson, the heir of two longtime farming
families. Her father’s family has grown almonds
and walnuts about Patterson, while her mother’s
family cultivated oranges in Southern California.
The best-value award marks the second time
within the past three years that Bronco has won
the honor. At the 2007 State Fair competition,
the Charles Shaw 2005 California Chardonnay,
popularly known as “Two-Buck Chuck” for
its $1.99 price at Trader Joe’s grocery stores,
won both the best-value award and the bestchardonnay honor.
Other Bronco labels to do exceptionally well
at this year’s State Fair include Coastal Ridge
(gold for its 2007 California Chardonnay),
Dona Sol Winery (gold for its 2007 California
White Zinfandel), Forest Glen Winery (gold for
its 2008 California Forest Fire White Merlot),
Napa Ridge Winery (gold for its 2007 Napa
Valley Pinot Noir) and Quail Ridge Cellars
(gold for its 2005 Napa Valley Merlot). Four
Charles Shaw wines won silver medals, the 2007
California Merlot, the 2008 California White
Zinfandel, the 2007 California Shiraz and the
2007 California Chardonnay. 1
Laurel & Andrew Quady
CALIFORNIA WINE 2009
49