2012 Mazzoni Home Ranch

Medium garnet color. Raspberry and cherry fruits, oak spice, black tea, chutney. Medium/full entry, sweet-tart bramble fruit, gravel earth, old-vine spice, elegant tannins, medium-length finish.

A short, dry winter prompted an early start to the growing season, but brought drought to Northern California. Although unirrigated, these deeprooted century-old vines ripened a small, flavorful crop. The five parcels fermented separately on native yeasts. Once pressed, and natural malolactic complete, the wines were blindtasted; all five were combined. Sixteen months in air-dried american oak added spice and softened tannins. This sensuous wine shows the complexity of a carignane-dominant field-blend. Elegant and approachable now, it will be most enjoyable over the next five or six years.

Giuseppe Mazzoni and his fourteen-year-old brother-in-law, Abramo Trusendi, arrived from Italy in 1898 and went straight to work at the Italian Swiss Colony vineyard cooperative in Asti, California. In 1899, the two managed to acquire hillside acreage nearby overlooking Alexander Valley from the west. By 1910 they had built a winery and begun making wine. Except for the Prohibition years, the Mazzoni family produced wine there until 1978. They were great believers in the contribution each varietal in a field blend could make to the finished wine. Accordingly, their century-old zinfandel is interplanted with carignane, which adds elegance and lively acidity, and petite sirah, which provides spice and depth. The Mazzoni Home Ranch was purchased in 1988 by Niccolo and Flora Oltranti. They have replanted parts of the abandoned hillside, and in some years we will include a small amount from these younger zinfandel vines.

Rainfall: 24 inches (below average)
Bloom: Mid-May
Weather: Warm spring and a long, mild summer that nicely ripened the grapes.

Harvest Dates: 12 and 24 September
Grapes: Average brix 24.3˚
Fermentation: Full crush, floating cap, in small three ton fermentors. Pressed at seven days.
Barrels: 100% air-dried american oak barrels: (25% new, 35% one and three years old, and 40% four years old).
Aging: Sixteen months in barrel

All Mazzoni Home Ranch sustainably farmed, hand harvested grapes; destemmed and crushed; fermented on the native yeasts, followed by full malolactic on the naturally-occurring bacteria; oak from barrel aging; minimum effective sulfur for this wine (30 ppm at crush; 108 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: 90.1

No. of Tasting Notes: 48

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