Two Holes and a Vineyard
TASTING NOTES:
2022 Overshine Zinfandel, Gold Mine Ranch, Dry Creek Valley: “Dense and dark berry fruits, bramble, black pepper, and dusty earth are completed with a full and long finish.” (AbV 14%)
2022 Overshine Zinfandel, Parmelee-Hill Vineyard, Sonoma Valley: “Dense and rich red fruits like raspberry and cherry but in a nearly candied feel are followed by white pepper and sweet herbs de Provence. The mouthfeel is rich and textured with fresh and long lasting acidity.” (AbV 14%)
VARIETALS: 100% Zinfandel from two distinct vineyards. Gold Mine Ranch: 3-acre vineyard on Dry Creek’s Western hills, planted before WWI, farmed organic for nearly 100 years. Parmelee-Hill: steep south-facing terraces of iron-rich red loam at the southern end of Sonoma Valley, overlapping into Carneros.
BARRELS: Destemmed and fermented at cool temperatures. Aged in 20% new French oak.
PAIRS WITH: N/A
THAT REMINDS ME OF: A veteran’s gold mine in the vineyards.
The story goes like this: a man plants grapevines on a small knoll in Dry Creek Valley. Then he gets drafted. He goes to war — the first one, the one they called the Great War before they had to start numbering them. He comes home. And instead of tending to his vines, or resting, or doing any of the things a reasonable person might do after surviving trench warfare, he decides to dig for gold.
He burrowed two holes right there next to the Zinfandel. Two actual mining shafts, sunk into the hillside on a three-acre property in Sonoma County, looking for precious metals to make into jewelry. He did not find gold. What he found, or rather what he already had, were grapevines — which, if you think about it, have proven to be worth considerably more than gold over the past century, at least in Dry Creek Valley.
The vineyard became known as Gold Mine Ranch, which is a name that sounds like it should belong to a theme park or a cryptocurrency, but actually belongs to one of the most quietly remarkable Zinfandel sites in California. A hundred years of organic farming. Vines older than most institutions. And just down the county, legendary grower Steve Hill planted a one-acre block of Zinfandel on steep terraces at Parmelee-Hill, in a region everyone said was too cool for it. He did it anyway. Sometimes the best vineyards come from people who didn’t get the memo.
