As a erstwhile Californian and wine lover I'll be honest with you. Zinfandel is my favorite wine. Not all Zins--I like the ones that have acid and moderate alcohol levels--but give me a homemade pizza and a nice bottle of Seghesio Old Vines and I'm in heaven. So when we moved to Washington I missed a couple of things (earthquakes, traffic...) but mostly those Zins. It is pretty rare to find a Washington State Zinfandel and most of the ones I have tried have fallen far below the bar set by our water-starved neighbor to the south. On the other hand, most of the other wines (Merlot that I have had up here by and large make California wine look weak. And I'm saying that as a wine fan not as a Washington Vintner....mostly).
But when we got a call from a very respected grower at harvest time last year telling us he had 1.5 tons of Zin we forgot about our budget and our plans and jumped at the chance. We are all Z fans and wanted an opportunity to produce a great wine in an unfamilar place. The Wahluke Slope where the grapes are from is a gravel bar miles long formed by our friend, the Bretz floods. It is a couple hours from Walla Walla up on the Columbia River near George, Washington. Theoretically it should be a great place to grow Zin--warm and dry with cool nights.
Anyway, our Zin is coming along nicely and showing some very concentrated berry flavors. It is too early to tell if it will come out on a level with the great Zins of California but hopefully it will be a great Washington Zin. We probably will release it in the fall of 2007 or the spring of 2008.
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