Froze to Death, Wrote *Frankenstein*
TASTING NOTES: “Dark briary fruit of white pepper, cedar, currents, grilled steak, spicy, raspberry, sage, and plum lead to an extractive fleshy structure with firm tannin and a balanced long lingering finish.” (AbV 14.5%, pH 3.54)
VARIETALS: 100% 2022 Amador County Zinfandel
BARRELS: 21 months in French Oak
PAIRS WITH: N/A
THAT REMINDS ME OF: The April frost.
April 12th. Eighty percent of the new shoot growth, gone overnight. That’s not a bad harvest — that’s an ambush. And it got me thinking about how much of history pivots on a single cold night nobody saw coming.
The most famous April frost in American lore is probably the one that nearly ended Washington’s army at Valley Forge — except that was winter, and hardship there was the whole point. The one that actually deserves more attention happened in April 1816, the year after Mount Tambora erupted in Indonesia and threw enough ash into the atmosphere to mess with global temperatures for eighteen months. New England got frost in June. June. Farmers called it “Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death.” Crops failed across the Northern Hemisphere, grain prices spiked, people starved, and — in a gloomy Swiss villa where a group of writers were stuck inside because the summer was too wretched to go outside — Mary Shelley started sketching out Frankenstein. One volcano. One ruined summer. One bored teenager with a pen. The math is almost offensive.
Scott Harvey’s winemaker notes mention, almost in passing, that the best Amador wines always come after the first fall rain — and that what survived the April frost ripened nicely. There’s something quietly stubborn in that phrasing. The vine lost eighty percent of its shoots and apparently decided to put everything into what was left. Which is either resilience or spite, and honestly, both make for good wine.
ICYMI, you have two choices:
Worried Summer heat might get to your wine before your wine gets to you? Order from this sale, the page you’re on right now, and we’ll get it to you at a cooler time of year (October)!
Want Protected Summer Shipping and don’t think heat will be a problem? Order from the sale linked here! We’ll still try to get them to you with as little travel time as we can.
Some places get absurdly hot during the Summer, and in particularly unpleasant circumstances, it can damage a wine. Most people get theirs no problem, but there are a couple each Summer that fall victim to the sun no matter how fast we get them to you. If you’ve experienced that before or are afraid it’ll happen to you, we’ll hold your order for you until October, if you order from the Summer Hold sale. We are reasonably sure things will be cooler then.
