2019 Zinfandel: Napa vs. Sonoma, February 11, 2023

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For the pre-tasting Beth wanted to feature grapes that are similar to Zinfandel. UC Davis professor Carole Meredith describes Zinfandel as one of the clones of a grape variety she calls “ZPC” – Zinfandel / Primitivo / Crljenak Kaštelanski. The Primitivo clone is principally grown in the Puglia region of Italy with some plantings in the US (including Jim & Betty Felton’s Sky Terrace Vineyards in Danville). The Crljenak Kaštelanski clone is grown in Croatia and is considered to be the original clone of the ZPC grape. Here are the four pre-tasting wines:
2019 Masseria Cuturi “Tuma” Primitivo Puglia IGT (Italy)
2017 Vina Matela Crljenak Kaštelanski (Croatia)
2019 Gianfranco Fino “Es” Primitivo di Manduria (Italy)
2021 Sky Terrace Vineyards Zinfandel (actually Primitivo)

Beth’s dining room was well decorated including a beautiful balloon arch. The 22 tasters had a wonderful time enjoying the 8 blind tasting wines and the delicious food supplied by Carol Gilliland’s team from “A Loveable Feast”. The blind tasting featured 4 wines from Napa and 4 from Sonoma, all 2019 Zinfandels. The tasting results show that the 4 Napa wines were ranked in the top 5. The wine that interrupted a sweep for the Napa wines was the 3rd place Carlisle.

The wines were double-decanted at 3PM; however, that appears to be too late because all of them changed significantly after they were poured. When I retasted all the wines the day after the tasting most of them had improved. If fact, my 8th place wine on Saturday (the Once &Future “Teldeschi”, also ranked 8th by the group) was clearly my 2nd favorite on Sunday. It appears to me that on Saturday the fruit in that wine was closed, but on Sunday it had opened up and the tannin was masked by the rich fruit. The owner and winemaker for Once and Future is Joel Peterson who was the co-founder and winemaker for the Ravenswood winery. Also, please note that the 5th place bottle, the Paradigm, was probably flawed. The Gandara’s have had this wine before and said that the bottle in the tasting didn’t taste as good as it normally does. It tasted to me as if it was over oaked which could have been caused by some compound that was masking the fruit.

The tasting wines are shown below in rank order:

Rank	Points	Wine	Price	Bottle
1	70	Napa: Turley Zinfandel Turley Estate 2019	$58.00	4
2	73	Napa: 2019 Once & Future “Green & Red Vineyard” Chiles Valley Zinfandel	$49.95	6
3	87	Sonoma: 2019 Carlisle “Carlisle Vineyard” Russian River Valley Zinfandel	$54.99	3
4	93	Napa: 2019 Keenan Spring Mountain District Zinfandel	$39.95	7
5	94	Napa: 2019 Paradigm “Estate” Oakville Zinfandel	$68.99	5
6	96	Sonoma: 2019 Ridge Vineyards “Lytton Springs” Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel	$42.95	8
7	101	Sonoma: 2019 Bedrock Wine Company Bedrock Vineyard Heritage	$50.00	2
8	107	Sonoma: 2019 Once & Future “Teldeschi – Frank’s Block” Sonoma Valley Zinfandel	$49.95	1

Individual Votes:

Rank	8	7	3	1	5	2	4	6
Total Points	107	101	87	70	94	73	93	96
Your Name	Btl 1	Btl 2	Btl 3	Btl 4	Btl 5	Btl 6	Btl 7	Btl 8
Karen C	8	5	3	1	4	2	6	7
Genie	8	6	7	5	2	1	3	4
Andre solomon	5	7	1	2	8	6	3	4
Vince	5	7	8	1	2	4	6	3
Richard M	8	5	6	3	2	7	2	4
Melinda Solomon	4	7	3	2	8	1	6	5
Phyllis	5	3	1	6	4	7	2	8
Diane Gandara	4	3	7	2	8	1	5	6
Betty Hood-Gibson	1	5	4	2	6	7	8	3
David Gibson	3	5	8	7	6	2	4	1
Marjie	5	2	4	3	1	7	8	6
Steve Shank	6	8	5	2	3	1	4	7
David Gandara	7	6	2	5	8	1	3	4
John Henry	4	6	1	3	5	2	8	7
Diane C	5	6	3	7	8	4	2	1
Beth DeAtley	4	1	3	2	7	5	6	8
Steve Smith	8	4	1	5	7	6	3	2
Ed	8	6	7	4	1	3	5	2
Lisa	4	3	5	6	1	2	8	7
Suzi mills	5	6	8	2	3	4	1	7