Chronicle 100 Year Old Vines Zinfandel - 3 Pack

Cesare · May 2, 2011, 12:00am

Chronicle 100 Year Old Vines Zinfandel - 3 Pack
$49.99 + $5 shipping
CONDITION: Red
PRODUCT: 3 2006 100-Year-Old Vines Zinfandel
CT link above

Winery website
Winery website 2

Previous offer:
9/13/10

MarkDaSpark · May 2, 2011, 12:02am

Courtesy of CJ:

So join or create a gathering!

jchasma · May 2, 2011, 12:03am

$5 more than last time…

hogfatt · May 2, 2011, 12:04am

CT Notes

I got this last time around. Good juice, can’t justify the purchase now, but would buy again if it came up a few months from now.

viajerouniversal · May 2, 2011, 12:04am

The Wine Spies Review of the 2006 Chronicle Wines One Hundred Year Old Vines Zinfandel

“Conclusion – The 2006 Chronicle Wines One Hundred Year Old Vines Zinfandel is a remarkably smooth and clean wine with a very approachable nose and a smooth palate. Great red fruit with bramble notes, savory and exotic notes don’t overpower but adds complexity without being disjointed. A lovely wine that will pair well with aged cheeses and smoked meats.”

smartheart · May 2, 2011, 12:06am

Can someone speak not to the age of the vines in this intriguing offer but to how the age of the vintage may impact how it drinks currently and how much longer it might hold up well?

MarkDaSpark · May 2, 2011, 12:07am

Just in case someone has a question about the Labrat program …

You can check out the Labrat info at the beginning of the Labrat Thread, which cheron98 updates with every labrat report.

It gives a great example of how it works, as well as the link to sign up.

Also, even more important, it has links to each offer’s labrat reports (back to June of 2008). So you can see what previous offers were like.

jsp872 · May 2, 2011, 12:10am

hmmm very interesting! what is the preferred drinking window?

joelsisk · May 2, 2011, 12:17am

not the same wine as last time…

bsevern · May 2, 2011, 12:40am

Luna makes some great wines, I love their Cabs!

Interestingly they don’t really make a Luna label Zin, but if this is as good as their Cabs, it should be a good deal (these are $36/bottle on their website, making this about 60% off with shipping factored in and not counting applicable taxes).

cortot20 · May 2, 2011, 12:43am

From the website:

Zinfandel One Hundred Year Old Vines

Bacigalupi brings brambly blackberry flavors and mid palate richness, Gaddis brings backbone and structure, and Gambogi brings intriguing chocolate and claret-like aromatics and flavor profiles. The final blend was 23% Bacigalupi, 32% Gaddis, and 45% Gambogi.

2006 Old Vines Zinfandel
Total production: 448 cases

The Vintage
December 2005 was quite wet with very little rainfall in May and none in June. Flowering was very successful with such little precipitation and set the stage for a large crop. Heat summations were significantly higher than 2005 with July in particular being much warmer than the previous three years. This heat wave affected all of California during the middle of July. Otherwise temperatures were generally quite mild. Zinfandel hung on the vine to the very end of October to reach optimum ripeness. Russian River Valley zinfandels are always a gamble to get ripe, but with patience and little rain, wines of extraordinary character were achieved in 2006.

The Vineyards
This wine is a blend of three neighboring old vine vineyards in the heart of the Russian River Valley basin, on Piner Road near Olivet Lane. This area was popular for settlement by Italian immigrant families in the early 1900s, and today, it represents “ground zero” when it comes to old vine Zinfandel. As was typical in the early 1900s, these are mostly field blends consisting of predominantly Zinfandel with a sprinkling of Petite Sirah, Alicante Bouschet, and Carignane. Despite consistently low yields that are rarely more than a ton and a half per acre, the cool location dictates very late picking, often late into October. Vines are all head trained, spur pruned, and dry farmed.

Bacigalupi Vineyard is the newest of the three, planted circa 1950 by Ernie Bacigalupi on what is now their five acre homestead. The vines are planted on a gentle south-facing slope, and consistently produce dark fruit flavors of the beguiling depth and density that one expects of old vine Zin. Gaddis Vineyard is located across Piner Road from here, to the rear of the nursery by the same name. Planted circa 1903, these vines are directly descended from the old world Primitivo grape – sometimes referred to as Crljenak. Gambogi is contiguous to Gaddis to the southwest, and was planted in 1906. Old Zinfandel vines are tenacious, and it shows in these two vineyards. Despite over a hundred years of stress and dry farming, and occasional neglect, these vines yield an intense and concentrated crop of cherished fruit.

Winemaking
In the winery, Dan is a believer in letting the incredibly unique characteristics of these old vine vineyards speak for themselves. He is also not overly concerned with numbers such as brix, Ph and acidity as long as all are in balance. In the cold climate Russian River area, that equilibrium is usually achieved by waiting as long as possible to pick, and hanging the fruit well into the fall until the leaves start to fall from the vine. At picking time, the fruit is hand sorted in the vineyard and brought to the winery in the cool morning hours.

The Zinfandels were cold-soaked for two days, followed by inoculation with Assmanshausen yeast. Fermentation is in small open top fermenters, during which we employ a combination of punch down and pump over techniques. The frequency and relative proportion of each depends upon vintage and individual fermenter characteristics. The wine is pressed off at dryness, and racked into barrel for
cellaring. Oak is used in a supporting role to help coax out the unique flavors in the wine. We use an assortment of coopers for the new wood percentage in the wines, ensuring as much complexity as possible without the “signature” of any one cooper. We used Demptos, Barrel Associates and World Cooperage for the 2006 vintage wines. The wood is all American oak as we believe its more aggressive
characteristics marry well with the aggressive flavors of old vine Zinfandel.

During barrel aging, we had great fun working on the blend from these three sites. Each has its charms and brought something different to the assemblage. In our final blend Bacigalupi brings brambly blackberry flavors and mid palate richness, Gaddis brings backbone and structure, and Gambogi brings intriguing chocolate and claret-like aromatics and flavor profiles. The final blend was 23% Bacigalupi,
32% Gaddis, and 45% Gambogi, with 40% aged in new American oak. To preserve the freshness of fruit, the wine was bottled after 20 months in oak with no fining or filtration.

The Wine
During barrel aging, we had great fun working on the blend from these three sites. Each has its charms and brought something different to the assemblage. In our final blend, the Bacigalupi brings brambly blackberry flavors and mid palate richness, Gaddis brings backbone and structure, and Gambogi brings intriguing chocolate and claret-like aromatics and flavor profiles. The final blend was 23% Bacigalupi, 32% Gaddis, and 45% Gambogi.as 23% Bacigalupi, 32% Gaddis, and 45% Gambogi.

Of interest here is the vineyard breakdown is different than the woot description. with 23% of the grapes coming from vines planted in the 50’s.

Bowhunters · May 2, 2011, 3:57am

According to this article it depends on your taste in wine. -

"Vine age is often considered a factor affecting wine quality,” says Kirk Grace, Vineyard Manager at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. “Winemakers who wax poetic about wines from a new vineyard hope the qualities they see early on will continue throughout that vineyard’s life. Others believe that the truest expression of a vineyard comes when it has endured the test of time. I believe both viewpoints may be correct.”

It takes about three years from the time a vine is planted for it to bear fruit that can be used in wine. Up to this time any grapes the vine produces are discarded. But it’s not until the vine is about five years old that it produces what may be considered a full crop level. From this point until the vine is about 25 years old – barring any diseases or pests – the vine is in full production mode. After about 25 years, however, the vine slows down and progressively yields less and less fruit. Although vines can live to be over 100 years old, it’s rare to see them reach that age because for most producers, the yield is so small that it isn’t economically viable. Many wineries replace vines as they decline rather than replanting an entire vineyard, so it’s common for one vineyard to have vines and blocks of varying ages.

More at the link below -

http://www.cask23.com/collectorsCorner/article/27

Drayu · May 2, 2011, 5:20am

Ugh…the label makes me want to buy it…

lionel47 · May 2, 2011, 5:21am

If I wasn’t on a SIWBM, I would be in for four of this one. Got it on a previous Woot and loved it.

It’s got heft enough to stand up to a good steak (we had elk steak with it once) but juicy enough to be enjoyed by itself. Oh, and its complexity increases as it breathes going from, well, a velvet texture with good mouth coating to cashmere with spicy sparkles.

A critic, I am not but I know what I like.

stevematlbch · May 2, 2011, 5:48am

I love zin and am very interested in this. I do have concerns about the shipping, living in N FL where it’s already quite warm. Fed Ex shows up here about 8 pm which means the wine has toured the city all day in the blazing sun, and who knows what conditions it’s been subjected to on the earlier part of it’s (no doubt long and slow) trip. There are obviously some knowledgeable people on here, anyone have some info on just how they protect the wine from cooking in shipping? No sense in buying it and having something that “could have been great”.

rugrats2001 · May 2, 2011, 6:20am

HP X2 210 G1 Intel Quad-Core Tablets

According to this article it depends on your taste in wine. -

"Vine age is often considered a factor affecting wine quality,” says Kirk Grace, Vineyard Manager at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. “Winemakers who wax poetic about wines from a new vineyard hope the qualities they see early on will continue throughout that vineyard’s life. Others believe that the truest expression of a vineyard comes when it has endured the test of time. I believe both viewpoints may be correct.”

It takes about three years from the time a vine is planted for it to bear fruit that can be used in wine. Up to this time any grapes the vine produces are discarded. But it’s not until the vine is about five years old that it produces what may be considered a full crop level. From this point until the vine is about 25 years old – barring any diseases or pests – the vine is in full production mode. After about 25 years, however, the vine slows down and progressively yields less and less fruit. Although vines can live to be over 100 years old, it’s rare to see them reach that age because for most producers, the yield is so small that it isn’t economically viable. Many wineries replace vines as they decline rather than replanting an entire vineyard, so it’s common for one vineyard to have vines and blocks of varying ages.

More at the link below -

http://www.cask23.com/collectorsCorner/article/27

Which begs the question - What is the REAL maximum age of the vines in a non-abandoned vineyard? Certainly nobody kept track of what vines were replaced each year, as production slowed after 25 years, vines fell victim to pests, bad growing years, etc… And just as certainly, vines WERE replaced to maintain usable harvest levels. I guess the question is, are ANY of the vines in these “100 year old vineyards” REALLY 50 years or more of age? Or is it just marketing hype?

stormn1 · May 2, 2011, 6:31am

Chronicle 100 Year Old Vines Zinfandel - 3 Pack
Current numbers (updated each minute)
First sucker: MarkDaSpark
Speed to first woot: 0m 27.130s
Last wooter to woot: stormn1

In for two…last Chronicle purchase was awesome!

RRichmo · May 2, 2011, 7:15am

Have the Wine Spies * ever * given a negative review of a wine? I’ve not seen one. No reflection on Chronicle, just something I’ve wondered.

smartheart · May 2, 2011, 7:30am

I’d be interested if the winery could compare and contrast this to what are apparently their other two (or more??) zins.