Winemaker's Notes
2020 Scherrer Vineyard ‘Old & Mature Vines’ Zinfandel Futures
After a very wet late winter and early spring, the vines had plenty of soil moisture to make it through the year. Vines looked great all summer long. As it turned out, the crop Based on my experiences with smoke uptake on a small lot of Pinot Noir in 2008 and the resulting success of the wine, I was quite hopeful that our fruit was minimally affected and well below threshold. Our vineyard’s other major customer of grapes has extensive laboratory capability and found that ‘smoke markers’ were well below any level of concern. This agreed with my ‘bucket fermentation’ of samples ahead of harvest showing no sensory effect, giving me confidence that a given vineyard block was spared excessive exposure to fresh, reactive smoke volatiles.
So, how does the 2020 Old & Mature Zin taste? My good friend and long-ago helper at the winery, Don Bliss came up with the descriptor ‘Mother Earth’ for wines such as this. It has all the elements of nature: Flowers, fruits, soil, composting leaves, etc. Angles and rounds are balanced. Fruit and non-fruit are balanced as well. One is compelled to come back for another look at the very large mosaic whose themes meld into adjacent areas, visible according to where the light is shining at the time. We recently opened a 1.5 L of the 2012 Old Vine Centennial. This 2020 Old & Mature reminds me of that wine when at a similar stage. It’s not quite as firmly structured and has the benefit of appropriate new French oak to support it. Nonetheless, it reminds me very much of that wine and vintage, overall. About 1,000 cases will be produced. Estimated release price: $40 per bottle.