Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/961311
{ SOMMjournal.com } 91 about raspberry and strawberry fruit with its unique, iron-like minerality, but I love the Hendry for different reasons. Its fruit is more on the blackberry/blueberry/pep- pery side, with distinct forest floor and an- ise." At barely 15% ABV and less than 30% new oak, there was enough restraint in the picking and winemaking decisions for these delineations to emerge in spades. Although the pendulum has not completely swung back to the 1960s and '70s—when Zinfandels topping 13% ABV were few and far between—the good news is that 16–17% ABV Zinfandels are now the dinosaurs. At the ZAP tasting, the finest Zinfandels were somewhere between 14.2–15.2%, putting them in the same vicinity as most of today's Chardon - nays and Pinot Noirs. Not that alcohol defines "balance": It never has, especially with a variety like Zinfandel. The grape has ample enough acidity and brightness to be picked around 24° Brix, but can evolve—with absolutely no water or acid adjustments—into wines that are sleek, racy, and moderately- weighted even at 15% ABV. Zinfandels in this style are among the most food- versatile wines in the world, tailormade for the bold sauces and layered, multicultural cooking favored by many modern chefs. Although Turley Wine Cellars has long been associated with big, hefty styles of Zinfandel, that reputation is a good ten years out of date. When you taste virtually any of the 26 different vineyard-designate Zinfandels Turley now produces (with fruit grown in 12 different counties), the opposite seems to be true: the lighter, elegantly-styled wines translate more like unZinfandels. Case in point: The 2015 Turley Juve - nile Zinfandel, a blend of younger vine fruit (which, for Turley, is vines averaging 17 years of age) seemed more like an ultra-violet, electrifying Beaujolais Grand Cru. It was brimming with exhilaratingly- bright red and blue berry fruit, but with the firmer tannin structure typical of the variety. Imagine that with duck in hoisin or fruit-infused jus, pizza topped with sweet sun-dried tomato and peppery arugula, or Chinese-style pork belly scented with palm sugar–reduced soy and star anise—dishes most Beaujolais Crus or even Pinot Noirs tend to wimp out on. In a conversation over the ZAP week - end, Turley Wine Cellars Winemaker Tegan Passalacqua furnished some insight: "The commonality with Turley Zinfandels of the past has always been farming—really con- trolling the vineyard. We have scaled back on both alcohol and oak, although we're still the same philosophically; we don't add yeast and we don't acidulate. We use a little less than 20% new oak, whereas at one point we were at 40%. I like to say that we've always liked the vineyards to speak for themselves." Among my other favorites from the trade tasting was the Mike & Molly Hendry 2014 R.W. Moore Vineyard Zinfandel from Napa Valley. It seemed to epitomize the dense, meaty texturing (in a fashion old- timers used to describe as "claret-like") and berry/forest floor interplay that comes to light when sense of place, not sheer varietal intensity, becomes the priority. I have always thought that the natural loamy, compost-like earthiness (not to be confused with the barnyard yeastiness of Brettanomyces) of some of the Lodi- grown Zinfandels were the closest thing you can find to reds from southwestern France. I found faint whiffs of that, along with black cherry and black tea, in the svelte and fleshy 2015 m2 Wines Soucie Vineyard Block 1916. It was also appar - ent in the more opulent St. Amant 2015 Marian's Vineyard Zinfandel, with both wines weighing in at about 14.8% ABV. In a similar vein, the 2015 Cedarville seemed to mesh white pepper–nuanced berries with a sturdily-tannic/acid-mobilized feel of granitic earthiness. In short, if you love terroir and you love balance, it's all but guaranteed you'll also love today's Zinfandels. From left to right: Katie Calhoun, Randy Caparoso, Chris Sawyer, Tim McDonald, Tina Caputo, Mike McCay, and Wilfred Wong attend the ZAP trade tasting. m2 Wine's Soucie Vineyard Block 1976 Zinfandel.