2017 Oltranti Zinfandel

Deep garnet color. Scented plum and black cherries, toasted oak, complex clay minerals, and savory herbs. Ripe stone fruits on entry, elegant tannins, smooth texture, and showing crushed pepper spice in the finish. EB (4/20)

In 1987, the Oltranti family purchased the Mazzoni Home Ranch vineyard. They began selling grapes from their nineteenth century vines to Ridge in 1996. They planted their fallow terraces to zinfandel in 1998. The quality and complexity improved as the vines matured. We made our first Oltranti bottling in 2004. This excellent vintage produced our third, and a deliciously appealing one. It will be enjoyable now through 2026.

Niccolo and Flora Oltranti purchased the old Mazzoni Home Ranch in 1987. They set about restoring this historic property, working on the buildings (Nic was an engineer) and tending the surviving nineteenth-century vines (Ridge has made Mazzoni Home Ranch from these old vines since 1996). Once the old vines recovered, Nic and son Paul turned to the abandoned hillside vineyards above. Replanted to an old zinfandel field selection, these young vines have begun to produce the quality that seems inherent to this exceptional zinfandel site.

Rainfall: 61.5 inches (above normal)
Bloom: May
Weather: A wet winter gave us much needed rain. Cool weather in the spring affected set across all varieties. Several heat spikes in late June, July and August saw temperatures over 105 degrees. Harvest started before the Labor Day heat wave hit; we quickly finished harvesting by mid-September.

Harvest Dates: 29 August – 4 September
Grapes: Average Brix 26.7˚
TA: 6.70 g/L
pH: 3.79
Fermentation: Full Crush, floating cap. 100% natural primary and secondary. Pressed at six days.
Barrels: 100% air-dried American oak barrels (15% two years-old and 85% three years-old).
Aging: Twenty months in barrel

Oltranti Ranch Vineyard grapes, hand-harvested; destemmed and crushed; fermented on the native yeasts, followed by full malolactic on the naturally occurring bacteria; 0.67g/L tartaric acid, 4% water addition; oak from barrel aging; minimum effective sulfur for this wine (35 ppm at crush, 155ppm over the course of aging). Depth filtration at bottling. In keeping with our philosophy of minimal intervention, this is the sum of our actions.

Average Rating: 91.7

No. of Tasting Notes: 6

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