2023 San Lorenzo

Full-bodied and inky ruby in color. Bramble fruit, black cherry, and roasted meat on the nose. Richly structured with well-balanced acidity. Finishes with black currant and espresso. MB (6/26)

A cold, rainy February pushed back bud break by four weeks. The grapes that make up this wine come from the oldest part of the vineyard, planted in 1892. This zinfandel field blend is interplanted with petite sirah and alicante bouschet. These deeply colored, more tannic varieties add structure to the zinfandel fruit. This powerful, yet elegant wine is enjoyable now and will develop over the next ten years. SR (12/24)

Pete Seghesio owns this historic San Lorenzo vineyard. Seghesio inherited the ranch from his mother, Rachel Ann Passalacqua Seghesio. The vineyard has been part of the Passalacqua family heritage since 1896, a few years after it was planted. His great-grandfather was a cook in the California gold fields and paid 10 gold coins for the land.

Rainfall: 64 inches (above normal)
Bloom: June
Weather: Late and prolonged harvest due to consistently cool weather throughout the growing season.

Harvest Date: 6 October
Grapes: Average Brix 25.7˚
TA: 5.5 g/L
pH: 3.69
Fermentation: Grapes destemmed and crushed, pumped over a floating cap twice daily.
Barrels: 100% air-dried American oak barrels (15% new, 50% four years old, and 35% five-plus years old).
Aging: Sixteen months in barrel

Hand-harvested grapes fermented on the native yeasts, followed by full malolactic on the naturally occurring malolactic bacteria; minimum effective sulfur for this wine (35 ppm at crush, 71 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.