Winemaker's Notes
2021 Scherrer Vineyard ‘Shale Terrace’ Zinfandel Futures
The past few years the Shale Terrace bottling has really captured my heart. The stone fruit thing has always been a strange, consistent, lovely signature. But I am seeing a little more red raspberry lately. I’m not sure why as we are not really changing anything in the winemaking and I doubt the droughty conditions are the cause: 2014 was one such vintage and it was a bit more dark-fruited than usual. Despite the moderate pH, the acidity shows more than one would think. This is truly a rule-breaker site.
Besides the typical stone fruit/nectarine thing, there is Santa Rosa plum, red raspberry, hibiscus, with slight savory back notes emerging as well. But the thing about this wine is the perfumes! It takes to Burgundy-type barrels while the OMV seems to lean toward an affinity to Cognac and Bordeaux barrels, probably due to the different structural architecture they possess.
Because this is a limited production wine, we must manage what we’re able to offer on futures. We have honored peoples’ past support of this wine and give those that purchased Shale in the past (even just a bottle) ‘first crack’ and orders received by August 3 will be processed first in the order they are received while supplies last. Those who have not bought Shale before may place an order which will be placed on the ‘wish list’. Those orders will be filled in the order they are received if there are futures still available after the first-crack August 3 deadline.
And not to fear, we also hold back some of the Shale from futures so we will have some available at release next April so those not in the ‘first-crack’ offering can have a few bottles. About 160 cases to be produced. Release price $42 /bottle. Futures price: $310 per case to be released April 2023