A fine, old-school Zinfandel

Whoa, it’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed a good, quality Zinfandel. How about you? It’s just not a variety that I think about much anymore.

What’s the problem? Let’s talk about this as I rush out an early edition of The Wine Advisor this week, hoping to get this mailed before Hurricane Helene’s much weakened remnants come this way with enough remaining power to knock out power for a while.

What do you look for in a Zinfandel?
Big and brawny, old-school field blend, or something else?
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Years and years ago, when I was barely old enough to buy my own wine, Zinfandel was a fun, funky California grape with a mysterious back story about Hungarian nobility, mis-labeled grapevines, and, eventually, DNA studies pointing back to Croatian ancestors with hard-to-pronounce names.

Zinfandel was an intriguing name in those days when bland California “Burgundy” and “Chablis” dominated wine shop shelves. It was fruity and interesting and not at all pricey, a good pick when you weren’t in the mood for a fancy Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir.

Zinfandel grapes ripening on the vine in Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County, California, October 10, 2019. Photo by Frank Schulenburg, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

California grew a lot of Zinfandel grapes, but it wasn’t a great cash crop. Until someone had the bright idea of putting Zinfandel through the process used to make rosé wines, quickly draining off the juice from the red skins to yield a pale-pink wine with a distinctly sweet flavor. White Zinfandel had arrived, and – often marketed as “blush” wine – it flew off the shelves.

Of course there was a counter-reaction, and a few high-end producers pushed Zinfandel to the other extreme, making big, brawny Port-like Zins with alcohol levels soaring to 15% and beyond. There wasn’t much old-school, rustic, food-friendly Zin left in the middle, and many of us simply moved on. Curious, I checked my archives and found that I’ve reported on a Zin only twice in the last dozen years, and both times it was a personal favorite (and a stylistic outlier despite its startling 15.3% alcohol), the organic Bonterra California Zinfandel.

Every now and then I like to give Zinfandel another try, and this week’s featured wine, Bedrock Old Vine California Zinfandel, clicks all the boxes I like when I’m in the mood for Zin: It’s made with grapes from vines an average of 80 years old. The 2022 vintage was grown in old vineyards around California: primarily from Teldeschi Ranch in Dry Creek Valley and Evangelho Vineyard in Contra Costa County, but also with contributions from Katushas in Lodi, Nervo Ranch in Alexander Valley, Sodini and Papera in the Russian River Valley, Beeson Ranch in Dry Creek Valley, Bedrock and Old Hill in Sonoma Valley.

Like the lovable old “field blends” made with a variety of grapes grown randomly within the same vineyard, Bedrock Old Vine is primarily Zinfandel, of course – 76% in the 2022 edition – but adds 11% Carignan, 5% Petite Sirah, 4% Grenache, and 3% Cinsault. The remaining 1% incorporates splashes of Mourvèdre, Negrette and others.

Like other old-school Zins, it’s no shrinking violet at 14.5% alcohol, but it remains within traditional limits for Zinfandel and avoids that Port-like burn of the bruiser variety.

A wine of this character, though, is not cheap. I paid $30 for it locally, and Wine-Searcher.com shows a $27 average U.S. retail, with a few vendors dropping to the lower $20s.

Because of this whack to my budget, my tasting report must lie behind our subscription paywall.

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