By Bruce Neyers

Tuesday 19th June, 2018

‘Too much wine will dull a man’s desire – in a dull man.’

This observation from Henry Fielding’s 18^th century masterpiece ‘Tom Jones’ seems well designed for today’s Zinfandel drinkers. For years California winemakers have tried to out-muscle one another in their zeal to produce Zinfandel with high alcohol. At Neyers Vineyards, we’ve been going in the exact opposite direction. Noted wine journalist Randy Caparosa does a lot to explain this in his recent piece entitled “Why Big Time Producers Like Ridge and Neyers Are Mining Lodi for Zinfandel.” Here are excerpts from Randy’s story:

Since the early 1990’s, Neyers Vineyards has been producing a variety of handcrafted, minimal intervention, native yeast-fermented wines that are sold in the country’s finest accounts. Since 2008, Neyers has been sourcing Lodi-grown Zinfandel from the Bokisch family’s Vista Luna Vineyard, planted on the eastern edge of San Joaquin County, in the AVA known as Borden Ranch. Viticulture here is different from that practiced in Lodi. The vines are trellised on cross-arms, and planted in red clay-loam soil inundated with gravel and nearly boulder-size rocks of quartz and granite. According to Bruce Neyers, the quartz adds a mineral element, the region’s ‘Sierra Rotor Effect’ cools the otherwise hot climate, and the heirloom selection planted at Bokisch provides smaller clusters that ripen evenly. Neyers can, he says, produce a wine made from fully ripened grapes that has only 13% alcohol.

It shows too. The recently released 2016 Vista Luna Zinfandel has a bright floral nose, brimming with cherry/strawberry fruit, nuanced with baking spices of cinnamon and clove, and mercifully free of excessive oak. It’s more reminiscent of a Bordeaux-style red. The backbone is formed by the combination of crisp acidity and svelte tannin, rather than the ‘fat’ feel of alcohol typical of most California Zinfandel.

Thanks for the encouragement, Randy.

Randy’s article in its entirety can be read at: https://bit.ly/2Hm3mXX

June 18, 2018