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Read about Previous Vintages: This is our 11th vintage of Zinfandel, and we’re smitten by its charms. Crafting the final blend for this wine was a treat. The Zinfandel component by itself was nearly a complete wine, loaded with ripe raspberry fruit, rich texture, and a long delicious finish. We didn’t need to blend in much Petite Sirah, as just a touch accentuated the black pepper character. A little Grenache gave the wine aromatic lift (how could a bit of Grenache hurt?). Our 2007 Zinfandel is our 10th vintage of Zinfandel, and it’s a beauty. Wine Spectator’s Tim Fish tasted a barrel sample of our 2007 Zinfandel and wrote: "Cedarville Estate El Dorado Fair Play 2007 ($22) offers a burst of bright cherry fruit and followed it with excellent acidity, structure and length. I would give all of these (listed) wines a preliminary rating of 89-91 points, non-blind, on Wine Spectator's 100-point scale." These are our own tasting notes on the wine: Aromas of ripe raspberry, root spices, and fresh cream lead into flavors of espresso bean and bright, juicy red fruits, with a long fruit-filled finish. This is our best Zin since the 2004 vintage. Blend: 90% Zinfandel, 10% Petite Sirah Price: $22 Cases Produced: 744 The harvest from our 2006 Zinfandel vines was quite small, yielding grapes with deep, concentrated flavor. Unlike the 2005 vintage, there was no need to perform a strict selection of our Zinfandel lots to assemble this wine. All the separate vineyard blocks were delicious! We enhanced the complexity of the wine by blending in a touch of Petite Sirah and Syrah, and for the first time, a little bit of Grenache. Aromas of dark fruits, blackberries, wood smoke, and root spices lead into flavors of chocolate, ripe raspberry, subtle mineral notes, and mint, with remarkable structure, and a very long, lingering finish. Serious stuff. Estate Vineyard Blocks: Estate Vineyard, south facing slop near top of vineyard at over 2,500 feet elevation. Blend: 88% Zinfandel, 6% Petite Sirah, 3% Syrah, 3% Grenache Price: $22 Cases Produced: 754 As in many past years, we decided to do a strict selection of the most intense and flavorful barrels from our five Zinfandel vineyard blocks for inclusion in the final blend. In the end, three blocks were used in their entirety, with the other two blocks making only a small contribution to the final blend. We're delighted with the resulting wine. It may turn out to be better than the 2004, especially if you're a fan of pure Zin fruit. The 2005 has pretty ruby color, aromas of blackberry, wood smoke, and exotic spices which jump from the glass, followed by lively, juicy ripe flavors before the long, fruity finish. Estate Vineyard Blocks: Estate Vineyard, south facing slop near top of vineyard at over 2,500 feet elevation. Wow, what a decadent wine! If you are a fan of big, ripe Zins, this wine is right up your alley. The Zinfandel grapes came in super-ripe and full of flavor at harvest in 2004. We really put our hand-sorting equipment to work this year, as some very warm weather in early August led to a fair amount of raisining. Our primary focus at the sorting table was removing those raisins, in order to prevent the pruney and, well, raisiny aromas and flavors they cause. As always, we harvested our Zinfandel vineyard in five separate blocks and kept the lots separate in the winery. In past years, only our favorite Zinfandel lots have made it into the final blend, and we've sold off the lots that didn't make the cut. That didn't happen in 2004, since all five lots were just outstanding. We included them all in the final blend. In January, Connoisseurs' Guide to California Wine favorably reviewed our 2003 Zinfandel, calling it "a near-classic expression of Sierra Foothill potency". The 2004 Zinfandel may be THE classic expression of Sierra Foothill potency. It has knock-out aromas of blackberry jam and cocoa, and the mouth bursts with black cherry, chocolate, and jammy flavors that go on and on. Estate Vineyard Blocks: Estate Vineyard, south facing slop near top of vineyard at over 2,500 feet elevation. As the folks at Connoisseurs' Guide to California Wine said about our 2002 Zinfandel, "it does not simply pursue ripeness for ripeness sake, and it finds a good dose of fruit at its heart it is full and quite inviting in feel". This is exactly what we're trying to achieve, and while we love our 2002 Zinfandel, we think our 2003 may be even better! As has been the case the last couple of years, our final blend is a strict selection of our four favorite of the six vineyard blocks of our Zinfandel field (we sold off the wine from the other two blocks). The 2003 Zinfandel delivers the characteristics we enjoy in our favorite Zins: ripeness, juiciness, rich texture, and food friendliness. Estate Vineyard Blocks: 100% Higgins clone Zinfandel from our Hilltop, Porcupine, and Winery blocks Wow, without a doubt, this is the richest, darkest, and densest Zinfandel we've offered to date. We love this wine! Our Zinfandel vineyard is divided into 7 sub-blocks, and almost all of them were 10 years old in 2002, an age where our vines seemed to settle down and behave themselves. We were able to dry farm some of the blocks for the first time, and yields have stabilized at just under 3 tons per acre. These grapes were harvested fully ripe, and picked block by block over several weeks. Estate Vineyard Blocks: 100% Higgins clone Zinfandel from our Hilltop, Porcupine, and Winery blocks Blend: 94% Zinfandel, 4% Mourvedre, 2% Petite Sirah 15.7% alcohol Price: $22 Cases Produced: 1,056 Tasting Note: The 2002 Zinfandel has deep red raspberry aromas, along with pretty cinnamon and smoky notes, and a touch of subtle minerality typical of our vineyard. In the mouth, the wine is packed with chocolate, black cherries, and berry pie flavors leading to an intense, mouth filling finish. In 2001, we harvested our Zinfandel vineyard in six different blocks over a 4 week period of time (quite remarkable for a small contiguous vineyard). Harvesting all of our Zinfandel vineyard blocks at once would be more convenient, but with a hillside vineyard like ours, grape ripeness varies too much from the top to the bottom of the hill. We want all the grapes perfectly ripe; harvesting in small blocks lets us control that. Just to be doubly certain, we hand sort each cluster before it's crushed, rejecting underripe and overripe clusters. If this wasn't enough, we selected only the Hilltop, Porcupine, and Winery Blocks for the final 2001 blend. We excluded the wine made from the Gophersnake Block, and sold it to another winery. It's expensive to select only the best blocks for our final blend, but worth it to ensure we don't compromise the quality of our Zinfandel. Estate Vineyard Blocks: 100% Higgins clone Zinfandel from our Hilltop, Porcupine, and Winery blocks 15.3% alcohol Price: $22 Cases Produced: 830 Tasting Note: Our 2001 Zinfandel displays aromas of black cherry, raspberry, and cocoa, plus appetizing raspberry jam, chocolate, and black pepper flavors. It is a hypothetical mix of the dark fruit flavors and structure of our 1999 Zinfandel, and the pure ripeness of our 2000 Zinfandel. |
