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ZAP Festival makes best of hard 2010 | PressDemocrat.com
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ZAP Festival makes best of hard
2010
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By PEG MELNIK
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Published: Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 4:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 4:01 a.m.
Zinfandel, in its most brazen expression, is the Lady Gaga of grape
varietals.
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the grapes from 2010 bottlings had
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The 2010 growing season was
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something of a suspense thriller,
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McKenna Fai…
with a killer heat spike in late
August that decimated some
Enlarge
zinfandel vineyards. Yet many of
zins at the ZAP tasting didn't reveal the high drama behind the
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Grenache 2009
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scenes. These zins rolling onto the market were as tasty as ever —
racy, full-throttle wines with bold fruit, good structure and complex
spice.
How did winemakers pull this off? More than a few said this was
the year that wine was made on the sorting-room table, where they
sacrificed lots of grapes and hard cash.
Morgan Twain-Peterson, vintner of Sonoma's Bedrock Wine Co. said
he had hoped to expand and produce 5,500 cases of wine this year
rather than his typical 4,000, but he didn't feel the 2010 grapes
were up to par.
“We're talking $300,000 to $400,000 worth of wine that would be
released,” Twain-Peterson said. “I sold 40 percent to the bulk
market .
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20120201/LIFESTYLE/202011070?p=all&tc=pgall[2/10/2012 12:34:59 PM]
ZAP Festival makes best of hard 2010 | PressDemocrat.com
.. There's too much good wine to be made to have even a single bad
bottle. It's like you have one shot to impress people with your bottle
of wine. It's worth the immediate loss to make sure you're not
releasing that wine.”
As for the heat spike, Twain-Peterson said it was brutal. It began on
Aug. 23 with temperatures pushing into the high 90s and then
cracking 100 for several days, breaking records around Northern
California.
“Certain vineyards looked as though a neutron bomb had gone off,”
he said. “Everything just melted. Everything just withered up and
dried.”
Steve Hall, winemaker of Napa's Robert Biale Vineyards, said the
heat trapped in the zinfandel canopies reached 130 degrees.
“Winemakers were using their pizza-oven thermometers to gauge the
EVENTS CALENDAR MORE EVENTS
SUBMIT EVENT
heat in the canopies,” he said of the point-and-shoot thermometers.
“Unlike merlot and cabernet, which continued to give fluids to the
grape clusters, the zin stems dried up and couldn't give fluids to the
clusters. We only saw this in the zin variety.”
10
FRI
11
SAT
12
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MON
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TUE
Enter event type or date
Kendall and Mike Carlisle, co-vintners of Carlisle Winery in Santa
FIND LOCAL BUSINESSES
Rosa, lost $150,000 in farming costs alone.
Keyword(s):
“Eventually after many, many years of stressing out, you realize you
just can't control Mother Nature. .
.. There are things you can do but when the grapes die in a day,
there's nothing you can do to turn that around or improve that
situation.”
This year, the couple decided to invest in crop insurance.
“At least this way if something disastrous happens, we'll at least get
our farming costs back,” Mike said. “The weather has been so
erratic over the last few years. I'm worried this is the new normal.”
“As a farmer, one requirement is that you have to be an optimist,
otherwise I don't think you'd survive,” Mike added. “If you have a
bad year, you can say ‘There's always next year.'”
Terry and DiAnn Rooney of Sacramento were among the 8,000
tasters Saturday, sipping wine in-between grazing on French bread
and cheese. The couple, formerly of Santa Rosa, said ZAP has been
a yearly ritual since 1985.
“We've been on the zin bandwagon for a long time,” DiAnn said. “I
like the elegant and the jammy ones. The ones that have guts.” The
couple said they tasted at least 100 zins.
DiAnn shrugged. “We learned a long time ago to spit.”
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ZAP Festival makes best of hard 2010 | PressDemocrat.com
Here's a glimpse of some interesting zins that were poured:
- Bedrock Old Vine Zin, Sonoma Valley Zinfandel, fall release, 14.6
percent alcohol, $22. A juicy zin loaded with fruit and seething with
spice. Notes of blackberry, herbs and cracked black pepper. Striking.
- Robert Biale Vineyards, Old Crane Ranch, St. Helena Zinfandel,
Feb. release, 15.8 percent alcohol, $50. A complex zin, with aromas
and flavors of blackberry, with a hint of raspberry and a peppery
finish. Intense.
- Carlisle 2010 Monte Rosso Vineyard, Sonoma Valley Zinfandel, fall
release, 15.6 percent alcohol, $45. A complex zin with layered
flavors. Notes of blackberry, anise and pepper. Lingering finish.
- Miraflores, 2009 El Dorado Zinfandel, on the market, 14.8 percent
alcohol, $25. A juicy zin with complex flavors. Great spicy aromas.
Bold fruit. Lingering finish.
- Ridge, 2010 Lytton Springs, Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel, Sept. 1st
release, 14.4 percent alcohol, $37. A snappy zin with good balance.
Aromas and flavors of blackberry, plum, a hint of rhubarb and black
pepper.
- Turley, 2010 Hayne Vineyard, Napa Valley Zinfandel, fall release,
16 percent alcohol, $75. A fruit bomb. Juicy, with aromas and
flavors of blackberry, cassis, herbs and spice. Racy.
- Wilson Winery & Vineyards. 2010 Molly's Reserve Zinfandel, on
the market, 15.6 percent alcohol, $48. A big-boy zin, with flavors of
blackberry cobbler, plum, herbs and pepper. Ripe, but not over the
top.
Staff writer Peg Melnik can be reached at 521-5310 or
[email protected]
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission.
Links are encouraged.
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