Pedroncelli Zinfandel Mother Clone 2008

Tasting Date: 4/6/2011

Varietal: Zinfandel Mother Clone 2008

Country: Sonoma, CA

Tasting Date Price: $15.99

Rating: WS 2008 88; WE 2008 84

Alcohol Content: 14.8%

Vineyard Website: click here

Visual Aspect: Dark red

Nose: Aromas of ripe raspberry and warm spice with jammy fruit fl avors framed by subtle black pepper.

Palate: Ripe and jammy, but nicely structured, with ripe cherry, licorice and roasted. herb flavors. 84 Delivers Zin’s briary, brambly wild berry flavors with the punch of high alcohol, which gives the wine a sweet, hot finish. You should know also that the tannins are hard.

Food Pairing: Rustic, but clean and drinkable with everyday fare.

Winery Notes:

Mother Clone Vineyard Sources: Pedroncelli’s historic Zinfandel vineyards are located on the hillsides surrounding the winery, on the ranch originally purchased by John Pedroncelli Sr. in 1927 and planted to Zinfandel since 1904. Our Zinfandel vines are head-pruned and hand picked. They were cloned from the original “Mother” vines…of which one quarter of an acre exist today and fruit from these 100-year-old vines is included in the blend. Along with the fruit from our estate vineyards, it has been a tradition to blend in the fruit from the Buchignani vineyard, another old vine (50 years old) vineyard.

Winemaking Our grapes are hand-picked with scrupulous attention paid to harvesting the fruit at the optimum time in order to achieve the right balance of ripeness and acidity. From one of our cooler harvest seasons, the grapes were brought in the last two weeks of September and were fermented in temperature controlled stainless steel tanks. The cellar crew performed daily pumpovers—extracting color and fl avor from the skins. Once fermented, the wine was aged in American oak barrels for 12 months. A touch of Petite Sirah adds additional color, structure, and tannin to our Zinfandel.

Pedroncelli Chardonnay 2009

 Tasting Date: 10/5/2011

Varietal: Pedroncelli Chardonnay 2009

Country: Dry Creek Valley, California

Tasting Date Price: $15.99

Rating:

Alcohol Content: 14.2%

Vineyard Website: click here

Visual Aspect:

Nose: Refreshing citrus, apple and melon aromas.

Palate: The refreshing citrus, apple and melon flavors predominate,

the blend of the two Chardonnay lots adds both fruit forward

qualities and oak complexity. Highlighted by bright acidity, the wine

finishes clean, crisp and full flavored.

Winery Notes:

John Pedroncelli and vineyard manager Lance Blakeley set aside a particular lot for this specially selected Chardonnay. Fruit comes entirely from a designated portion of the vineyard where two appellations meet: Russian River Valley on the south side and Dry Creek Valley to the north. The vineyard is influenced by the cool climate that combines marine fog layers at the confluence of Dry Creek and the Russian River. This mixture of cool climate with alluvial soils results in exceptional fruit leading to a nicely balanced wine..

Winemaking

At Pedroncelli Winery, the winemaking goal is simple: showcase the distinctive fruit of each varietal. This focus on fruit is particularly important in creating the style of Chardonnay that is our trademark. We use stainless steel tanks to ferment 70% of the blend, capturing the fresh fruit flavors. The balance was separately barrel fermented in American oak barrels and aged for seven months before being blended with the larger portion. The barrel fermentation and a small amount of secondary or “malo-lactic” fermentation added some toast and creamy notes giving a boost of complexity to the finished wine.

Aging: 30% of the blend was fermented and aged in American oak for 7 months

Pedroncelli Mother Clone Zinfandel 2009

 Tasting Date: 7/6/2011

Varietal: Zinfandel

Country: Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma, California

Tasting Date Price: $15.99

Rating: WS 2009 88; WE 2008 84

Alcohol Content: 14.8%

Vineyard Website: click here

Visual Aspect: Rich red

Nose: Brambly berry fruit, briar, allspice and vanilla bean aromas all present themselves in varying degrees of intensity through the nose of this 2008 Zinfandel

Palate: Black cherry leads the charge throughout the palate and it’s joined by a nice complement of dark berry fruits and intermingling wisps of toasty oak. A wallop of minerals, earth, dusty baker’s chocolate and black pepper flavors are all part of the excellent finish. This wine has supple tannins and terrific acidity.

Food Pairing: This wine’s versatility shows with food. It’s beautifully balanced and will thus pair with a wide array of styles. A dish of pasta with red sauce would be a terrific match, as would roasted meats. It also works well paired with more casual foods such as hard cheeses or a Panini.

Winery Notes: Stop thinking about that kind of clone, silly people. The fruit of this intoxicating plant grows proudly under the sun in the good, deep earth, not sadly tethered to tubes in some artificially lit little closet. But this story does begin in the midst of a time of prohibition. In 1927, the smart money was on prunes, but perhaps seeing a light at the end of the Volstead Act, Giovanni Pedroncelli purchased 25 acres of vineyard in Dry Creek Valley. The Pedroncellis first sold grapes, then renewed the old bonded winery onsite when Prohibition ended just a few years later. When varietal wine really boomed again in the 1970s, the family replanted using budwood from the original, 100-year-old Zinfandel vines from the home ranch.

Pedroncelli 2008 “Mother Clone” Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel ($15) is a good old, traditional Dry Creek Zin. Toasty oak and menthol blow off to reveal strawberry jam and big brambleberry fruit flavors. Zingy on the tongue, but not hot on the finish, wrapping up firmly with dry, chalky tannin. A sold example of the genre, and priced so well you can get two bottles–one for the recipe and one for the cook

Pedroncelli Dry Rose of Zinfandel 2009

Tasting Date: 6/1/2011

Varietal: Dry Rose of Zinfandel 2009

Country: Sonoma, California

Tasting Date Price: $9.34

Rating: WS 86

Alcohol Content: 13.5

Vineyard Website: click here

Visual Aspect: Clear pink

Nose: Aromatic with citrus and herbaceous notes

Palate: This wine is crisp, and offers many layers of flavor on the palate. Honeydew melon, grapefruit and tart apple flavors linger with a balanced acidity that adds a refreshing quality.

Food Pairing: Pairs with most dishes where white wines fit the bill and can be a wonderful pairing where light-bodied reds are suggested

Winery Notes: A second generation vineyard with some of the vines contributing to this wine planted just after the turn of the 20th century on the Pedroncelli Home Ranch. The newer plantings were propagated (cloned) from those venerable survivors–head pruned, hillside, hand picked vineyards. This unusually concentrated Zinfandel highlights ripe blackberry and spice notes

Ferrari Carrano Fume Blanc 2009

91 points! First Place!

California Grapevine
Medium-light yellow color; attractive, forward, intense, grassy varietal aroma with notes of ripe melon, kiwi, and citrus; medium-full body; rich, grassy, slightly tropical, citrus and honeydew melon flavors with good depth and a slightly creamy, silky mouthfeel; well balanced; crisp finish; lingering aftertaste. Very highly recommended.
-April/May 2010

Citrus, mango, kiwi, and lime aromas are complemented by flavors of vanilla, guava and grapefruit in Ferrari-Carano’s 2009 Fumé Blanc. Cool, stainless steel tank fermentation gives this wine a crisp freshness while the subtle oak character from barrel aging adds great complexity and depth

Vintage Notes
The 2009 Ferrari-Carano Fumé Blanc is a blend of vineyard lots from various appellations of Sonoma County — Dry Creek, Alexander and Russian River Valleys. Fruit arrived with larger yields this year, which was surprising because of low rainfall amounts during the spring and very mild weather throughout the growing season. The happy result was deliciously flavored and well-balanced Sauvignon Blanc grapes. Harvest began late-August and was completed the beginning of October.

Winemakers Notes
When the Sauvignon Blanc grapes arrive at the winery, each lot is gently crushed, de-stemmed and pressed into stainless steel tanks for 48 hours of cold settling. The juice is either transferred to stainless steel tanks or older French oak barrels for fermentation. The wine in barrels is sur lie aged and stirred every two weeks for four months. Individual lots are treated separately until blending to create the final F/umé Blanc blend.

Appellation: Sonoma County
Blend: 100% Sauvignon Blanc
Cooperage: 64% Stainless Steel; 36% older French oak
Release Day: February 2010

Tasting Date: September 2011
Vintage: 2009
Varietal: fume Blanc
Country: California, Sonoma
Retail Price on Tasting Date: $