2016 Hooker Creek Zinfandel

Opaque purple, black pepper and jammy black currant nose. Spicy, briary dark fruit palate. Lingering finish with licorice and black olive accents. JO (12/17)

Budbreak came early at this Sonoma Valley vineyard. The oldest block set a light crop that ripened quickly. We picked it on August 30, returning a week later for the remaining two blocks. Each parcel was crushed to a separate fermentor, and pumped over twice-daily, extracting deep color and ample tannin. This exemplary old-vine zinfandel will be enjoyable over the next seven years.

This wine comes from old zinfandel vines planted along Hooker Creek north of the town of Glen Ellen in Sonoma Valley. These old vines were planted one hundred and twenty seven years ago on a part of the Agua Caliente Spanish Land grant purchased from General Vallejo by Joseph Hooker and William Sherman in 1854. Despite an ethically questionable lifestyle, “Fighting Joe” Hooker went on to command the Army of the Potomac in 1863 as a major general. After losing the battle of Chancellorsville to a significantly smaller Confederate force under Robert E. Lee, he was relieved of command. This is our fourth harvest from this vineyard.

Rainfall: 38 inches
Bloom: Mid-May
Weather: A wet December and January helped ease the drought which emphatically ended in March. Cool weather in April reduced our crop a bit. Harvest started late August and finished in early September.

Harvest dates: 30 August & 5 September
Grapes: Average brix 25.1°
Fermentation: Grapes destemmed and crushed, pumped over a floating cap twice daily. Pressed at ten days.
Barrels: 100% air-dried american oak barrels (10% new, 40% one and two years old, 50% three, four and five years old).
Time in barrel: Ten months

Hand-harvested grapes fermented on the native yeasts, followed by full malolactic on the naturally occurring malolactic bacteria; 0.75% water addition; 0.25g/L tartaric acid; oak from barrel aging; minimum effective sulfur for this wine (35 ppm at crush, 74 ppm over the course of aging); pad filtered at bottling. In keeping with our philosophy of minimal intervention, this is the sum of our actions.

Average Rating: 89.1

No. of Tasting Notes: 29

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