Dashe Dry Creek Zinfandel 2007

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Starting at: $18^.74

5 Reviews

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Winery:

Dashe Cellars

Varietal:

Zinfandel

Region:

USA > California > Sonoma County > Dry Creek Valley

Type:

Red Wine

Color:

Drink Dates:

Drink Now - 2011

UPC:

654884101041

User Tags:  spices, fruit, (tree) fruit, apple, pome, jam, dessert, pepper, caramel, chocolate 

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What to Expect

Zinfandel is considered America's own great indigenous grape, even though its origins lie on the Adriatic coast. Planted throughout California and the Pacific Northwest, Zinfandel is at its best in warm regions with cooler temperatures during harvest. The wines can range from off-dry Rosés, White Zinfandels, and light bistro styled wines, to big, rich powerful wines - even luscious wines for dessert bottling. The flavors range from plummy to raspberry, although deep blackberry fruit and brambly spice tones are most common.

Winemakers Notes

HISTORY
As soon as we crushed the grapes we knew that these wines would make themselves. The wines were very dark as soon as the fermentation began, and the flavors just burst out of the glass when tasting the newly-made wine. We make this wine from a number of small, family-owned vineyards in the center and north of the Dry Creek Valley, and each of these vineyards showed beautiful black-cherry and spicy fruit aromas from the start.

PRODUCTION
We used our special custom-made gridded tanks to ferment the wines. These tanks, outfitted with stainless-steel grids that can be read more...raised or lowered on top of the crushed grapes, allow us to submerge the cap of grape skins beneath the surface of the fermenting wine. We extract color, body, and complexity from the grapes, using these grids, without extracting too much of the drying tannins found in the seeds. The result are intense and complex wines that feel velvety and round on the tongue rather than harsh or tannic.

Most of the wines were fermented using only the natural yeast population on the grapes—a technique that we are familiar with from our experience working for almost nine years at Ridge Vineyards—and the resulting wines are intriguingly complex and luscious. During fermentation the temperature was allowed to rise between 85 and 90º F, to aid in the extraction of color and flavor. At dryness, the wine was gently pressed in a membrane press and pumped to small, 60-gallon barrels.

The wine was aged for 10 months in a mixture of French oak and American oak barrels—including our new 900 gallon French oak casks that allow us to gain the softness of oak aging without adding excessive oak flavors in the wine. As is our tradition, we also kept the SO2 levels in the wine to an absolute minimum, and did not fine the wine before bottling. In our blending trials, we added about 5% of petite syrah (for structure and aging potential).

PRODUCTION NOTES

Varietals: 95% Zinfandel, 5% Petite Sirah

Appellation: Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County

Alcohol: 14.5 % by vol.

Time in oak: 10 months

Oak: 30% French & 70% American; 15% new. 900 gallons aged in large French oak casks.

Production: 5967 cases, 750mL

297 cases, 375mL

Release date: October 31, 2008

Optimum time for consumption: 2008-2015    (hide)

Editorial Reviews

Gregory-
Dal Piaz

Hand of Snooth Voice of Snooth

7,117

Deep and dark with bittersweet chocolate shavings a touch of prune, rum raisin, blackberry, pencil eraser, noticeably alcohol too. With air this turns downright concord grapy jelly and smells like breakfast! Silky and refined with great purity of fruit. There are layers of bright brambly blackberry fruit, spice, vanilla, red earth, a touch of spinach, hot iron, watermelon ring, lovely and delicious. This also feels great with precise balance and harmony. Nothing is obvious yet the wine remains nervous and tense in the mouth. Delicious. With a touch of wood spice on the finish. 91pts

• Tags:
• ptp 17

April 2009

3

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