Big River Ranch boasts 110-year-old vines. Winemaker Joe Healy is big on sorting at the incoming fruit table, removing both raisins and pips to get at the purity of ripe fruit. He picks on taste starting at around 24.5 brix, looking for no green tones or raisiny character. Bright pepper, bramble fruit, root beer and spice flood the nose, and get solid linear delivery on the palate, with a dry finish that is clean and gives a nice pepper push. This shows the classy side of the Zinfandel spectrum.
Bella, Russian River Valley (Sonoma County, California) Zinfandel 2014
By Rich Cook