Cameron Hughes Zinfandel Lot 86 Lodi 2006

Winemaker's Notes:

Notes: Dark, brick red wine with super spicy, huge nose of plums, blackberry, and black pepper. On the palate this wine is a basket of plummy red fruits, a little pomegranate, vanilla oak notes, pepper, and chocolate covered raisins. As this powerfully structured zinfandel opens up it gains additional complexity with tobacco and sweet cigar smoke notes. Despite two years in barrel, this zin is just a baby and will continue to improve in the bottle for many years to come. Cameron Confidential: I got a phone call last spring that the new owners of a particular mid-sized, super/ultra-premium winery with facilities around the state had decided to “rightsize” their wine portfolio. Having spent large dollar amounts on rapid growth what the business calls “spifs” and “the vig” (promotional dollars), a sharp auditor recommended that by simply cutting the production in half, you could get rid of the “spifs” and return the winery to profitability and a pathway to more organic growth. We were invited in to go hog-wild in the Lodi facility and, like a kid in a candy store, winemaker David came up no less than 5 different wines with new blends coming all the time. The winery we purchased these from is a unique operation preferring to make a variety of “component wines” from various vineyards and varietals and then blending upwards of 40 different wines per year from those components. There is not tank larger than 8,000 gallons in the winery to facilitate this sort of small Lot winemaking and the guy who assembles the final blends is truly a master making a range of wines from $250 a bottle Napa Cabs to $18 a bottle California red blends. Sister wines include our Lot 89 Lodi Syrah and Lot 90 Lodi Tannat – also exceptional values. The Lodi Zinfandel we have sourced here is exactly ½ of their 2006 top-end bottle blend zin they price at $30 a bottle in stores around the country. We souped it up even more with a good dollop of smokin’ Russian River petite sirah, fleshing and stretching out the wine to carry the ultra-plump Lodi fruit. QUITE SIMPLY THE BEST ZINFANDEL WE HAVE EVER PRODUCED.