If you happen to really know California wine, Zinfandel. And if Zinfandel, then you definately most actually know Rombauer Vineyards.
The late vintner Koerner Rombauer began Rombauer Vineyards in 1980. 4 years later, the vineyard launched its first choices: a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Chardonnay. The producer would quickly turn out to be synonymous with the opulent white grape, changing into an award-winning powerhouse in Napa Valley and throughout the globe for so long as it has been in enterprise.
However Rombauer has one other ace up its sleeve — Zinfandel.
Not lengthy after opening Rombauer Vineyards, Koerner met Steve Harvey, a winemaker in Amador County. Recognized for launching Ménage à Trois, the vastly profitable label, Harvey launched Koerner to the luscious fruit of the Sierra Foothills, together with vineyards in El Dorado and Amador Counties. The budding winemaker fell deeply in love with the grape and Rombauer Vineyards launched its first bottle of Zinfandel quickly after.
Although Zinfandel’s genetic roots will be traced to Croatia, it has turn out to be a quintessentially California grape. Dropped at the East Coast within the 1800s, Zinfandel was launched to California in the course of the Gold Rush and have become probably the most broadly planted grape within the Golden State. Skinny-skinned like its cousin Pinot Noir, Zinfandel is a temperamental grape that requires persistence and the best rising situations. However when all the things hits excellent, which is precisely what Rombauer strives for, the result’s chic.
The grapes within the Zinfandel mix are described by Richie Allen, Senior Director of Viticulture & Winemaking at Rombauer, as “extremely concentrated and stuffed with taste.” He says, ”The vast majority of them come from the Sierra Foothills of Amador and El Dorado Counties, Lake County, and a contact of Napa County.”
Allen, who initially hails from Australia, fell in love with winemaking on a mountaineering journey to the States that included a wine tasting. He flew again Down Underneath and dedicated the following few years to oenology. The winemaker formally joined the Rombauer staff in 2006 and has helped information the award-winning portfolio and the winery into the longer term with an eye fixed on innovation and sustainability.
Utilizing a mixture of conventional strategies and cutting-edge tech — like optical sorting machines that take photographs of each berry for the best fruit and aerial photographs from NDVI maps (Normalized Distinction Vegetation Index) — Rombauer goes to painstaking lengths to make sure that the perfect fruit is used to supply the perfect wine. “If you’re not always making an attempt to enhance, you might be falling behind,” Allen says.
Rombauer’s Zinfandel is destemmed, put by the optical sorter, adopted by tank-fermentation — not like the Cabernet and Merlot. After basket-pressing, it’ll spend round 15 months in French and new American oak barrels. “The explanation we use the American oak,” Allen provides, “is that with a riper fashion of wine, it pairs quite a bit higher. It’s smooth in tannin, it has lots of vanilla and coconut taste,s and pairs completely with the ripe, jammy fruit.”
Rombauer Vineyards now has over 180 acres of sustainably farmed Zinfandel vines inside a number of appellations that supply a variety of climates, soils, elevations, and age of vine plantings. “The vines are anyplace from 60 to 110 years previous. They’ve a high quality and character to them that’s really distinctive. It provides a depth and quantity which you could’t pretend,” provides Allen.
Diener Winery in Lake County lies at 1,700 toes in elevation, whereas the Napa Valley vineyards have patches of volcanic soil and a dry Mediterranean local weather that promotes intense and concentrated fruit. Within the Sierra Foothills, the property winery Twin Rivers is cooled by its elevation relatively than fog. Sandy soils and a fancy topography make the best location for the Zinfandel grape.
The varied websites give Rombauer a variety of high-quality fruit with totally different aroma and taste profiles that mix right into a masterful, opulent, but versatile wine. Rombauer’s Zinfandel gives aromas of boysenberry and daring black plum notes underscored by clove and vanilla. The darkish berry flavors linger on the palate the place they mingle with pomegranate and dragon fruit. Mild pepper and dried orange peel notes complement the fruit profiles with high quality tannins and a delightful acidity in every sip.
If you happen to haven’t added Rombauer’s Zinfandel to your checklist, now could be the time. Get pleasure from it with Italian meatballs and a pink sauce, child again ribs, recent berry pie, or just by itself — as a result of both approach, you get a wealthy, scrumptious style of California historical past.
This text is sponsored by Rombauer Vineyards.
