This medium bodied, well balanced wine exhibits the best varietal qualities of Dry Creek Zinfandel. The balance between the fruit flavors, tannin and acid makes this vintage truly enjoyable. The first thing you notice is its color and clarity looking very much like a jewel in your glass. The aromas are pure fruit with hints of spices and wood. Raspberries, plum, and dark cherry are initial flavors with some of us also tasting nuances of fig leading to an enjoyable spicy finish. This is truly a Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel. We are proud of this well balanced vintage.
Harvest & Winemaking Notes
The 2017 growing season was relatively favorable. We had a cool, wet winter and spring, a relatively normally hot summer, and a wonderfully warm Indian summer for our harvest. We hand harvest our Dry Creek Valley fruit at night during September. The sugar and acid levels were in balance at nearly perfect levels at harvest time due to the warmth of the Indian summer. The fruit arrived at the crush pad shortly after harvest while the grapes were still cool.
Fermentation in open top tanks with manual punch down 2-4 times a day, length of fermentations: 10 to 13 days
Zinfandel is a great wine to pair with all types of foods and ours does quite well with anything from Barbecue to Eggplant Parmiggiano. This wine is drinkable now and will age quite well.
Specs
Varietal: Zinfandel
Vintage: 2017
Apellation: Dry Creek Valley
Vineyard: The Spencer Family Vineyard
Harvest Date: September 29, 2017
Bottled: September 6, 2019, unfined with a light filtration.
Aging: Aged in 2-year-old French oak barrels for 10 1/2 months.
Alcohol: 15.5%
pH: 3.78
Residual Sugar: less than 0.1%
100 cases produced
Winemaker: Dick Handal, Lucas Meeker and David Noyes, Consulting winemaker
2018 Denier-Handal Zinfandel Dry Creek Valley
Tasting Notes
Gold ~ 2020 Sonoma County Harvest Fair
Deep dark red velvety color! Rich ripe fruit, (blackberry and raspberry), invites a taste. The nose evolves to strawberry jam and cinnamon spice. In the mouth blackberries and dark plum, and creamy cassis persist, strongly complimented by flavors of toasted brown sugar and cinnamon. Delicious! These progress to a lingering finish of dark fruit flavors, caramel and burnt sugar, which plays against the wine’s well balanced acid and tannic structure.
Harvest & Winemaking Notes
We hand harvest our Dry Creek Valley fruit at night during September. The sugar and acid levels were in balance at nearly perfect levels at harvest due the warmth of summer. The fruit arrived at the crush pad shortly after harvest while the grapes were still cool.
Fermentation in open top tanks with manual punch down 2-4 times a day, length of fermentations: 7 days.
This Zin pairs well with hearty grilled meats and vegetables, red sauce based pasta dishes and your favorite burger. Great with mushroom dishes and even some desserts.
Specs
Varietal: Zinfandel
Vintage: 2018
Apellation: Dry Creek Valley
Vineyard: Sterling Vineyards
Harvest Date: September 2018
Bottled: September 2020, unfined with a light filtration.
Aging: Aged in 2-year-old French oak barrels for 20 months.
Alcohol: 15.2%
pH: 3.78
Residual Sugar: less than 0.1%
154 cases produced
Winemakers: Dick Handal, Lucas Meeker, David Noyes, Consulting Winemaker
An award-winning, family-run winery in the heart of Dry Creek Valley
Our fascination with wine-grape growing began in South America, where we lived in Ecuador for 38 years, and continues today with our wine making ventures in Sonoma County.
Our winemaking is a relatively recent venture. For over twenty years we were primarily grape growers selling our premium grapes to some of the best wineries in Sonoma and Napa counties with whom we have long standing relationships. One of our client-wineries was Wellington Vineyards in Glen Ellen owned by the Wellington family of Sonoma. Peter Wellington, owner-winemaker, produced several award-winning, vineyard specific Cabernet Sauvignons, including one from our Dry Creek Vineyard. Peter Wellington helped us develop and make our wines. We grew and produced boutique lots of Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Sagrantino, a Red Blend and Cabernet Sauvignon at the Wellington facility in Glen Ellen. We now produce our wines at the Meeker custom crush facility in Healdsburg and continue to receive consulting support from Peter Wellington as well as David Noyes who also worked with Wellington.
We continue to source excellent Zinfandel and Syrah grapes from small family owned vineyards that follow our high standards in growing grapes using organic practices and supporting sustainability. These farming relationships ensure that our grapes will continue to produce award winning wines.
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, LA, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, TX, VA, WA, WI
Denier-Handal Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel Vertical
4 bottles for $74.99 $18.75/bottle + $2/bottle shipping
Case of 12 for $179.99 $15/bottle + $1/bottle shipping
How much more are you saving by buying a full case?
(Note: Tax & Shipping not included in savings calculations)
Denier-Handal Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel Vertical - $45 = 19.99%
@mattkillpatty I would have that same concern except my trust of the producers makes me think it would not be one of those simple fruity things. I do think sometimes the people writing the descriptions maybe over-stress that part of the profile even when the wine is (hopefully) much more subtle and complex.
Looks interesting, can’t purchase.
Why offer it to such a limited number of shipping states.
If your going to sell your wine, pay the taxes to do it right,
Or don’t do it all.
@wino121 Oh, grasshopper… it’s fairly expensive in some states to register a wine (e.g. Connecticut) and if the volume of sales in that state don’t justify the cost of registration, then a winery can (quite reasonably in my view) decide it’s not worth registering. It frustrates many of us (before we left CT, there were lots of offers unavailable unless you had a ‘wootlegger’ (or Casemates equivalent) in New York, which was almost always on the ‘ship to’ list.), but if you’re only selling a dozen cases of a wine in a state where it costs $1,000 a label (that’s per separate sku item, not per winery), the additional cost can neither be easily absorbed nor passed on to the consumer (who sees the lower price in adjacent states).
How could I pass on this offer, especially after all the reminiscing about Wellington. I remember some great Zin’s he made in collaboration with their fruit.
Thanks’ Dick!! bright-frosted-bow
@PLSemenza Thank you for your support. We are very grateful for our longtime friendship with Peter Wellington. He made some great wine with our Cabernet and Zinfandel. David Noyes, who worked with Peter Wellington is our consulting winemaker and helps us with our tasting notes.
This is the first no-MN offer I can recall seeing (at least that I cared to check on)…which saves me two cases, I guess. Any magic ways to get the deal direct?
@Doralice thanks for the attention!
Since i ordered another case from elsewhere since then, guess i’ll hold to one…
no clue how to get my giphy in here.
I was always a huge fan of Peter Wellington’s Denier-Handel designated vineyard Zins! I’ve also had some with the Denier-Handel label and enjoyed them. Dry Creek Valley and environs is one of the truly great places in California to grow Zinfandel, though I would caution that in recent years, the alcohol levels have been rising significantly. They don’t have to, though avoiding high alcohol requires attention and decision-making in the vineyard and in the winery. Some of the best Dry Creek Zins have been on the high side of 14%, but too many are jammy, which to me indicates the grapes have been picked at higher sugars than I prefer. I suppose it’s all really about the kind of flavors you associate with Zinfandel and what you like. I prefer red fruit, just ripe, as opposed to very ripe, dark fruit flavors. In my experience, the ‘red fruit’ Zins - which are typically well under 14% alcohol - are better balanced for the long haul and are far more age-worthy. Example: Last month we had a 1970 Simi Zinfandel (Alexander Valley) that was around 13.5% and was still alive, well and had recognizable red raspberry fruit in the nose. It is inconceivable to me that a 14.5% or higher alcohol Zin could live 50 years. But, if what you want is ripe fruit Zin, and plan to drink in the next year or two, this wine should serve you very nicely.
@rpm@Winesmith What’s the difference between ripe and overripe? I suppose it is in the eye of the grower/vintner/consumer. I’m sure you know far more than I do about ‘proper ripeness’ but I have observed that there is a complex relationship between hang time and temperature (stunning insight, Sherlock!) Warm areas like DCV seem to achieve tremendous sugar content at full ripeness and I don’t know that you’d be happy with the product if the grapes were picked earlier. While I used to think that vintners waited for extreme sugar numbers to embolden their wines, I’m starting to believe it has more to do with vineyard siting than annual winemaking decisions.
Let’s start with physiology and climate. Grape vines are designed to mature their seeds and then to attract birds to swallow them, fly away and shit them out in the next county, thus spreading the plant’s reproductive zone. Before the seed is mature, the berry must hide and even repel the bird - at veraision, the berry is already 12 brix - half again the sugar of a ripe tomato, this highly nutritious. It remains hard, green, bitter, low in flavor except pyrazine (bell pepper flavor) and is very high in malic acid so it tastes bland, harsh and sour.
Once the seed is mature and viable, the vines races to reverse these characteristics. The berry swell and softens. Many fruity flavors are manufactured such as terpenes, thiols and cinnamic acid derivatives that comprise varietal character. In reds, anthocyanins render the grape highly visible and in whites, color changes from green to golden. The malic acid is respired to make energy to pump high amounts of sugar into the berry. Yum! When all this is complete, the berry is ripe. This process simply takes time. We will be picking our Riesling in Alexander Valley in mid-October on the same day as they do in Geisenheim on the 50th parallel. They hope to get 17 brix (spaetlese) while we hope for less than 26 brix.
Far too much emphasis is placed on temperature. The elevated sugar levels we see in California are due to low humidity, not temperature. I invented a dealcoholization process using distillation of reverse osmosis permeate to overcome this impediment so I can make European-style wines with good varietal and regional character and good structure by uncoupling the phenolic ripeness decision from brix, which only predicts alcohol, not ripeness.
Unfortunately, any California wineries let their grapes hang well beyond the ripe stage and allow raisining. The result is a deterioration of varietal and appellation-based flavors and instead results in port-like, fruit forward wines that are yummy in the short term and then dry out and fall apart in the cellar. I call these “clown wines.”
One unfortunate motivation to let grapes shrivel is to cheat the grower. It is common practice to pick at 29 brix instead of 24, thus shrinking the yield from 4 tons per acre to 3, and then at the winery adding back a ton of water. This is thievery, because that water belongs to the grower.
All this applies doubly to Zinfandel. Because it ripens unevenly in many sites, you can find green berries and raisins on the same cluster. The temptation is to hang it until there are no green berries. The result is an impactful, high alcohol fruit bomb that is great to guzzle with barbecue but has no shelf life.
In the '70s, wineries like Clos Du Val and Sutter Home made extraordinary wines through careful viticculture and selective picking. The '72 Clos Du Val and the '68 Deaver Vineyard are still wonderfully alive today. Scott Harvey’s wines and the Terra D’Oro Deaver Zin are examples of what is still being done in this restrained style. These wines develop very sexy aged characteristics similar to Rieslings - bay leaf, Asian spice, cardamom accenting their rich raspberry fruit.
In early spring we will release our '19 Grist Vineyard Dry Creek Zin also in this style. I consider Dry Creek Zinfandel to be the most classically European in its firm, solid tannins,and I’m sure this wine is no exception.
@KitMarlot@winesmith I will defer to Clark as the professional here, but my experience over the past 60 odd years of drinking Sonoma County Zinfandel, much of it from the Healdsburg, Alexander Valley, Dry Creek Valley areas suggests a few observations:
in general (and taking into account differences in labeling
regulations) Zinfandel is produced at significantly higher alcohol
levels today than in was in 1960 or 1970. I know some of
those wines could last 50 years, because I have drunk them at 50.
in general, the fruit is being picked at higher sugar levels
(expressed as degrees Brix) than they were 30, 40, 50 and 60 years
ago.
combinations of different styles of trellising, canopy
management, irrigation and cluster management have affected the
sugar levels at which the fruit reaches ‘phenolic ripeness’.
there have been several waves beginning with the ‘no wimpy wines’
movement in the ‘70s of demand for high alcohol, very ripe (overripe
to me) wines, followed by a drop in demand for them, rinse and
repeat at least twice.
table wines made from very / over ripe grapes are generally
unbalanced in one or more ways and rarely age very well over the
medium to long run.
wines made from very ripe grapes tend to have a bit more residual
sugar (or at least seem to) and that sweetness is actually preferred
by many drinkers who say they prefer dry wine.
Part of this trend is a byproduct of the Parkerization of the
business - he being the one who champions fruit forward, but not
very well balanced wines.
@KitMarlot@rpm@winesmith Wow, absolutely stunning write-up (dissertation?) but helps explain so much. Also now I have learned a new term “clown wines.”
@KitMarlot@pmarin@winesmith I think Clark’s term clown wines for the phenomenon he describes and we both decry is far too mild a term of condemnation for them. They are a perversion of the winemaker’s art and a crime against the collective conscience of gods of wine.
@KitMarlot@rpm I agree on all seven points, though I think Parker-bashing is overdone.
Here’s a bit of history. Post WWII enology ushered in the German system of reductive winemaking for the first time by employing inert gas and stainless steel. This allowed production of fresh whites - a very new phenomenon. Not to be outdone, Emil Peynaud and the Bordelais winemakers employed the same techniques on reds, with disastrous results. It took fifty years to figure out that skillful application of enological oxygen is the key to great reds.
Before this was re-learned, the Australian flying winemakers solved the problem of overly reductive reds through extended hang time. This is where the practice started, and is still today a legitimate practice for making user-friendly, fruit-forward wines for immediate consumption. Making these wines requires little skill in the cellar but great care in the vineyard to prevent excessive “field oxidation” which robs the wine of longevity. The technique resulted in a fiasco in the 1997 vintage of Barolos, where the postmodern movement has learn that this is a bad idea for vins de garde, i.e. reserve wines intended for development over decades.
So today we have “Coastal” wines at $10-$15 for early consumption and Reserve wines for aging.
@winesmith Grist Vineyard! Legendary. My first zin from this vineyard was from Bradford Mountain winery. Not sure if they are still around. Looking forward to your release! Will this be your first zin?
@KitMarlot@winesmith Fair enough on the Parker-bashing… but the man doesn’t understand Cabernet Sauvignon and its relatives and for that alone I can’t respect him… Though you’re right about the post-WWII introduction of stainless steel and inert gas, I remind you fresh whites were made before that … think of that 1934 French Colombard they made and crown seal bottled at Davis that they open in the late ‘70s or early 80s and it was a fresh young wine! My great uncles (who were 19th century graduate oenologists from Conegliano) told of making very fresh whites before Prohibition, though the fashion then was mostly for Riesling in high end whites… though they said those Rieslings were not the dull (often oxidized) California Rieslings I remember from the 1960s… what a revelation it was when I was first served good Rhein Riesling! I also think there has always been a real distinction between wines made to age and wines for everyday consumption… what may be newer is the making of big wines from the grapes that used to be reserved for reserve wines, for current consumption. As far as I can tell, there simply weren’t enough of those grapes to even think about something like that when I was a lad in the late 1950s.
@losthighwayz I’ve made quite a bit of Zinfandel over the years for myself and for clients, but this will be the first WineSmith Zinfandel. It’s a hell of a start.
@KitMarlot@rpm@winesmith
I noticed your reference to “no wimpy wines”, and unsurprisingly thought of Ravenswood. You may have heard, Joel Peterson was able to buy back a bunch of old Ravenswood wines from the 80s through mid 2000s and he’s sold them via his new winery. I’ve had several now, and these are balanced and age worthy wines. My favourite thus far has been a 1993 Los Chamizal Zin.
@rpm These wines will go a lot longer than the next year or two. Period. The 18 went to bottle sooner because it was just ready sooner, but both wines have nice, clean fruit expression and plenty of tannin—mainly of the grape variety with a relatively light touch on oak. These are not hyper new school Zins, either from a philosophy or technical perspective.
You forgot one way to have Zin hang too long—the vyd manager is 7 days late on your pick call.
Dick’s fruit for this wine comes from my pick call on the same vyd for Meeker, and while it’s a difficult spot to get a good sample on (both due to it being a combination of two blocks that don’t ripen together and having—like almost all Zin in middle DCV now—a non-zero amount of virus), we really embrace the ripeness variety that each facet of this head-trained vyd, some virus, and Zin’s nature add to the equation.
For Dick’s wines, we work hard to balance accessibility with an ultimately relatively acidic, tannin-forward style that is generally 3.45-3.6 pH and most importantly <1 g/L GF.
I know I don’t need to further explain those things to you but in general for these wines we’re looking for that sweet spot of friendly, fruit-fronted wines that are still very proud of their structure and honor the long heritage of overtly rustic charm and dense structure that DCV was built on, which of course means they still have the legs to go 10-15 at the very least.
@KitMarlot@lucasmeeker@winesmith Thanks very much for adding these thoughts and information. I’m sure you understand where our upfront concerns come from, and am glad you can address them!
@KitMarlot@rpm@winesmith To put it incredibly bluntly, to prejudge a wine’s style and age ability because of its alcohol is a broken model. I could give you a treatise on it, but I’ll instead give you one specific part of that treatise.
Wines increase in alcohol as the barrel age because of the nature of evaporation of an ethanol solution in barrel. So, from a purely winemaking standpoint, it’s perfectly possible that I could pick and press a 13.5% Zin that needed 24-30 in barrel and end up with a 15.4% wine.
So what would that tell you about ripeness?
Alcohol does have an effect on rate of aging in bottle, but not to an extent where it should add into a consumer’s expectation equation.
What you should actually be paying attention to as a predictor of style, execution, and aging is pH and RS. But even that isn’t close to perfect, but it’s way better than using the labeled alcohol content of a wine (which if you don’t already know has a habit of being wildly inaccurate).
@KitMarlot@rjquillin@rpm@winesmith Glucose/Fructose—the fermentable sugars in grapes. 10 g/L is 1.0% residual sugar. 1 g/L is 0.1%. Under 1 g/L is bottle stable naturally without sterile filtration.
This is why “off-dry” table wines are a contemporary phenomenon. Before we had 0.45 micron absolute filtration, we didn’t really have the option to bottle a wine at 7 g/L as a “dry wine” without making inadvertent sparkling.
@KitMarlot@lucasmeeker@rpm This is a good point about barrel aging in California. It happens in air-conditioned warehouses because they dry the air, thus water evaporates preferentially and alcohols go up. The best solution is to age in a cave. In those conditions, the air comes into equilibrium and is nearly saturated with humidity, so the alcohol evaporates preferentially and the ABV goes down. It’s a little tricky. You have to be careful not to be above 80% humidity or you get mold.On the other hand, it reduces your shrinkage from about 4% per year to about 1%.
@KitMarlot@lucasmeeker@rpm@winesmith That’s super interesting - I’ve always wondered why alcohol would increase with barrel aging when it has a lower evaporation point and vapour pressure. If I’m interpreting correctly it’s because the air conditioning and generally low humidity of California inland of the first coast range keeps removing water from consideration so you need to keep evaporating it.
@KitMarlot@klezman@rpm@winesmith It’s not just air conditioning. It’s the nature of not aging underground. Our building does not have HVAC and we actively keep it as humid as possible, alc still climbs.
@KitMarlot@klezman@lucasmeeker@rpm There is no snark happening here. Instead, we have an honest and open exchange of view at a high technilogical level without apology or deceit. This is what we need if we are to heal the bad marriage between the earnest winemakers and dedicated winemakers that currently exists. A plague on your houses who hurl insults while we are trying to heal these wounds.
@losthighwayz Yes there were fires but they did not affect the fruit in 2017 unlike in 2020. Lucas might pipe in at some point. Thanks for your question!
@losthighwayz Hi! This fruit was off weeks before the ‘17 fires, so no worries there. FWIW, the 17 wines we made for Meeker and our clients that did have exposure have all stayed appreciably clean thus far, and some of them are excellent.
I received a bottle of 2018 Denier-Handal Zinfandel
last Thursday afternoon. I’m a big fan of Zinfandel, so this was a very happy surprise. I was cooking Indian Butter Chicken for dinner, which is not a traditional pairing, but I was game to try.
!Bottle of Denier-Handal Zinfandel and glass of the wine][1]
[1]:
First impressions
Visuals: The wine is deep ruby or garnet in color, slightly translucent, with thick, long-lasting legs.
Nose: I found the nose, immediately upon opening the bottle, not much to remark on. It was closed with notes of cherries and oak. After about 20 minutes in the glass, the wine opened considerably. I found dark cherry and plum, chai spices, and cedar on the nose. It’s not overpowering, but well balanced.
Flavors: Immediately upon opening I found the flavor to be a little acidic and tannic, with red fruit, like raspberries, on the front. After 20 minutes in the glass, the wine mellowed and the acid and tannins melted away. Spices, like black pepper, cardamom, and clove are on the front. Dark fruit, like plums and blackberries permeate, with a hint of juniper on the finish. And speaking of the finish, it is long and slightly oaky.
I can’t say that it paired particularly well with butter chicken, but that isn’t the fault of the wine. It was very easy drinking, if lacking a bit of complexity.
On Friday, I prepared spaghetti with veal meatballs. This was a significantly better pairing.
Friday Tasting
Thursday night I put the cork back in the bottle and left it on the counter. Room temp is about 68 to 70 degrees.
Visuals: No change from the first impression.
Nose: The nose is more muted than it was the first day, but still presents red and black fruits, a hint of spice, and a little minerality.
Flavors: The flavor has softened quite a bit. The acid and tannins are almost completely gone. In their place is dark fruit, a slight astringency like Juniper berry, and minerality. But the real change happened when I paired it with my spaghetti and veal meatball dinner. With the food, the wine became more complex and more flavorful. It brought out the fruit (strawberry, raspberry, and black plums), the pepper mellowed into Chinese Five Spice, and there was a hint of minerality on the finish.
In conclusion, I believe that this Zinfandel is a great everyday drinker, but it becomes a star with the right food pairing. It would rise to the occasion with rich foods, beef, veal, and cheeses. It would make a great pairing with a holiday roast or soufflé. I think the $15/bottle case price is good QPR.
@WCCWineGirl I agree. I was surprised it was so different between the two meals. I think it shines best with rich food like beef and cheese. I liked it a lot of it’s own, but paired with those meatballs, it made me wish I hadn’t “wasted” two glasses of it on Thursday with the butter chicken.
@gemeinschaft79 Our go to pairing with Indian food is Barbera, but if we’re out we usually go for a zin. Tastes good with Ghobi Manchurian, and is adequate with the Chicken Tikka Masala (similar to butter chicken).
On a rainy Friday evening in December, at the end of a difficult work week, our tasting of the 2017 Denier-Handal Zinfandel
gave a little clarity to the pandemic chaos. As our son boisterously played video games in the other room, we set out the remnants of Thanksgiving appetizer cheeses and uncorked the bottle.
On first pour, the wine had a ruby color, jewel-like in its clarity. In contrast, the nose was slightly woody (a green wood) with blackberry and plum fruit and a hint of licorice in the finish. All this promised complexity.
A first taste yielded blackberry, currant, and pomegranate with a hint of strawberry. With the different cheeses, the various facets of the wine emerged. With the cranberry Stilton, the fruit came forward. With the taleggio, the wine fell flat and slightly bitter. A plain goat cheese was more or less as expected, with its earthiness teasing out a creaminess in the wine.
As dinner cooked, we set the wine aside to breathe for about a half hour. On second tasting the various fruits blossomed: plum and quince, cherry and strawberry. Unlike many zinfandels, we detected little pepper. Rather, the wine yielded the comforting holiday spices of clove and allspice, a gentle passage to comfort on a cold night. The color had become duskier, less jewel-like, but richer for the transformation.
We paired the wine with a steak finished with black pepper, garlic and thyme butter. The wine was slightly overwhelmed by the pepper and herbaceous thyme, which diminished the spice and flattened the fruit. We felt the wine might pair better with a pork dish, or even a rich chicken. Or, maybe, a holiday clove studded and honey basted ham (hint, hint, nudge, nudge)?
After over an hour of breathing, in the afterglow of dinner, the dark berries promised on first taste fully emerged: blackberry, blueberry, and licorice in the finish. Although we didn’t have dessert, we thought this wine could pair with cheesecake, pumpkin pie, or even a Dutch apple pie.
At 15%, the alcohol level was a little high for one taster, who left the table buzzed, but the other taster was ready to open another bottle! Although we contemplated leaving some for a second tasting, no bottle lasts overnight in this house!
In short, this wine is fruity, balanced, and infinitely drinkable on its own. It would pair particularly well with slightly sweet, spicy holiday dishes.
We agreed that $25-$30 a bottle would be reasonable for this bottle. At this price, we’ll probably do a case.
Oh, and apologies for no pics. This is our first rattage.
@lionel47 Thanks for great descriptive write-up. Photos aren’t essential so I wouldn’t worry about that, though I sometimes do like the photos especially if they have cats!
@lionel47 Plenty of people prefer that rats don’t post pictures, unless they show the wine against a white background. This is your community, do what you want!
@KitMarlot@lionel47 I do remember a debate a few weeks ago about pictures. I can go either way on it. First we will side-step the issue of cats because of course that is always good.
So ignoring cats, which can be hard to do because they don’t want you to ignore them, I do find that pictures of the wine in glass have been extremely helpful in some cases. like where we had a 15+ year-old white wine, and you wanted to see if there was any of the amber tint that might mean some oxidation. Also sometimes we get a back label of the bottle which can be interesting (for some reason this site doesn’t post multiple views on the sale page except in rare cases). The pictures of delicious food are inspiring, but mostly just make me hungry and jealous. But I’m OK with it.
I am delighted to report on this wine, which arrived a few days ago-- my first lab rat venture. I received a bottle from the 2017 vintage. I poured some into a glass and immediately noticed its color, a bright red that truly sparkled, and its noticeable legs. Nice. The aroma was on the light side, as is its taste – definitely light for a zinfandel, but its delicate spice overtones make it unquestionably a zinfandel. It has a really pleasant taste and a lovely, long finish that lingers with overtones of vanilla (or almond?).
The first evening, I had it with a beef dish marinated in soy sauce, ginger and garlic. The two married well. The second evening, I paired it with a roasted tomato sauce over pasta. Even better. Plus, the wine had opened up more; it was a bit brighter and fuller—come into its own, perhaps.
I had two friends taste it, as well. My next-door neighbor, who has served as a lab rat in the past, confirmed my findings, as did my other friend, with whom I often split cases. We all agree you can’t go wrong with this wine. It’s smooth and balanced and, more than likely, quite versatile when pairing it with food. And I now see it is not available in NH, which is where we live, making me all the more appreciative for having had the chance to enjoy it.
To answer a question posted on the discussion: I did not find the wine jammy.
Thank you all for your reports on our wine! Love that you could taste chai spice and quince. Yes, we get nervous when we get to descriptions like “jammy”. A dense spicy blackberry conserve would be more like it. Definitely love that these wines pair with more complex dishes as well as the comforting spaghetti and meatballs.
While there were fires to the south and east of Dry Creek Valley, the grapes didn’t suffer smoke taint which is a blessing. Not like the 2020 harvest where we were not able to buy fruit from Dry Creek Valley.
So, what does ‘2 year old barrel’ mean? Was it sitting empty in a warehouse for further seasoning? Did it hold one wine for the duration of the first two years of its life? Something else entirely?
@KitMarlot It means the barrel was used for two years (and I believe two fills) before its use on this wine. (Good) New barrels give for 7 ish years or at least three fills, with some superstar coopers seeming to have notable give even up to 9 or 10.
My trimphant-twinkling-snowglobe is scheduled to arrive after January 7, which actually made me happy. Much love, blessings, and thanks to all of you out there delivering our packages right now.
Let me ask the group this.
With my wife pregnant and our current stock pile, I would be 3-5 years from drinking this.
Is that beneficial or a negative to the wine?
@Drez143 The wine won’t be as fruit forward as it is now, but as one of the people who made it I can assure you it will be—provided you like your Zin more complex and can store it properly—better.
2017 Denier-Handal Zinfandel Dry Creek Valley
Tasting Notes
Gold ~ 2020 Sonoma County Harvest Fair
Harvest & Winemaking Notes
Specs
2018 Denier-Handal Zinfandel Dry Creek Valley
Tasting Notes
Gold ~ 2020 Sonoma County Harvest Fair
Harvest & Winemaking Notes
Specs
Included in the Box
4-bottles:
Case:
Price Comparison
$243.60 at Handal-Denier Vineyards for 12x 2017 Denier-Handal Zinfandel, Dry Creek Valley
About The Winery
Available States
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Estimated Delivery
Thursday, Jan 7 - Monday, Jan 11
Denier-Handal Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel Vertical
4 bottles for $74.99 $18.75/bottle + $2/bottle shipping
Case of 12 for $179.99 $15/bottle + $1/bottle shipping
2017 Zinfandel
2018 Zinfandel
How much more are you saving by buying a full case?
(Note: Tax & Shipping not included in savings calculations)
Denier-Handal Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel Vertical - $45 = 19.99%
Nice offer! Great too see you back here, Dick!
Greedy me says: Want 12! Need 12! 20% discount if I buy 12! Four is not enough!
Sane me says: No room for 12. Wait to see if a case split develops in the morning, and risk a sellout.
Sane me wins. (Grumble, grumble)
@InFrom Review in CT of my Zin holdings indicates I have no business buying any more.
The four-pack it is!
/giphy enjoyable-toasted-bow
We love dry creek zins.
We love Denier-Handal!
Our wine storage does not like purchases at the moment…
Anyone from Denver want to split?
@CObrent @kristian @mtnzj
Anyone want a couple? I’d order and be fine keeping 4 sets (8 bottles).
@knlprez @kristian @mtnzj I can help with one set if you are ordering, but…storage!
@CObrent @knlprez @kristian I’m going to sit this one out. Overloaded with Zin as it is.
@CObrent @kristian @mtnzj
No problem, I ordered, happy to keep them all but willing to let some go as well, just let me know!
/giphy cheesy-dashing-sleighbells
@CObrent @knlprez @mtnzj I’ll gladly take a set if that works for you. Cheers! BTW, I’m in Chile, any of you have a good Carmenier recommendation?
@CObrent @kristian @mtnzj
Very little experience with Chilean wines here… Sorry! Safe travels and a couple bottles will be waiting when you’re back.
Love a Dry Creek Zin. Any Chicago mates want to split?
@jshaver I’m in Indy if you ever make your way down here! Would love to split.
@danidani12 I’m in Indy. Interested in splitting a case?
@jonnyrockett yes - absolutely!
Are these really jammy (fruit bombs)? Looks like fun and the Rs looks good but the description of the berry jam throws me off a bit. Can anyone help?
@mattkillpatty I would have that same concern except my trust of the producers makes me think it would not be one of those simple fruity things. I do think sometimes the people writing the descriptions maybe over-stress that part of the profile even when the wine is (hopefully) much more subtle and complex.
@pmarin awesome and thank you. Yeah, I’m always hesitant of the descriptions and should just look at the numbers. I’m in!
OWLS! TOWELS! JOWLS! AWESOME!
Looks interesting, can’t purchase.
Why offer it to such a limited number of shipping states.
If your going to sell your wine, pay the taxes to do it right,
Or don’t do it all.
@wino121 thanks for explaining that to them
@wino121 Learn how math works.
@wino121 it seems you’re not in a good state (of mind?). Some wine might help!
@wino121 There are five states I can think of that I am sometimes in, and all five of them are on the shipping list.
@wino121 Oh, grasshopper… it’s fairly expensive in some states to register a wine (e.g. Connecticut) and if the volume of sales in that state don’t justify the cost of registration, then a winery can (quite reasonably in my view) decide it’s not worth registering. It frustrates many of us (before we left CT, there were lots of offers unavailable unless you had a ‘wootlegger’ (or Casemates equivalent) in New York, which was almost always on the ‘ship to’ list.), but if you’re only selling a dozen cases of a wine in a state where it costs $1,000 a label (that’s per separate sku item, not per winery), the additional cost can neither be easily absorbed nor passed on to the consumer (who sees the lower price in adjacent states).
Sigh…I need some Zin in the wine bank… the other bank disagrees with such choices. Oh well…
@TechnoViking i SO relate to this
Any DMV area folks for split?
How could I pass on this offer, especially after all the reminiscing about Wellington.
I remember some great Zin’s he made in collaboration with their fruit.
Thanks’ Dick!!
bright-frosted-bow
@PLSemenza Zins and the Cabs!!
@PLSemenza Thank you for your support. We are very grateful for our longtime friendship with Peter Wellington. He made some great wine with our Cabernet and Zinfandel. David Noyes, who worked with Peter Wellington is our consulting winemaker and helps us with our tasting notes.
This is the first no-MN offer I can recall seeing (at least that I cared to check on)…which saves me two cases, I guess. Any magic ways to get the deal direct?
@slinger42 I am sorry, that was a mistake on our end. We do ship to MN and we have since corrected this. You can order this deal. Sorry about that.
@Doralice thanks for the attention!
Since i ordered another case from elsewhere since then, guess i’ll hold to one…
no clue how to get my giphy in here.
Will order a case. Willing to share -Eastern MA and Southern NH
I was always a huge fan of Peter Wellington’s Denier-Handel designated vineyard Zins! I’ve also had some with the Denier-Handel label and enjoyed them. Dry Creek Valley and environs is one of the truly great places in California to grow Zinfandel, though I would caution that in recent years, the alcohol levels have been rising significantly. They don’t have to, though avoiding high alcohol requires attention and decision-making in the vineyard and in the winery. Some of the best Dry Creek Zins have been on the high side of 14%, but too many are jammy, which to me indicates the grapes have been picked at higher sugars than I prefer. I suppose it’s all really about the kind of flavors you associate with Zinfandel and what you like. I prefer red fruit, just ripe, as opposed to very ripe, dark fruit flavors. In my experience, the ‘red fruit’ Zins - which are typically well under 14% alcohol - are better balanced for the long haul and are far more age-worthy. Example: Last month we had a 1970 Simi Zinfandel (Alexander Valley) that was around 13.5% and was still alive, well and had recognizable red raspberry fruit in the nose. It is inconceivable to me that a 14.5% or higher alcohol Zin could live 50 years. But, if what you want is ripe fruit Zin, and plan to drink in the next year or two, this wine should serve you very nicely.
@rpm @Winesmith What’s the difference between ripe and overripe? I suppose it is in the eye of the grower/vintner/consumer. I’m sure you know far more than I do about ‘proper ripeness’ but I have observed that there is a complex relationship between hang time and temperature (stunning insight, Sherlock!) Warm areas like DCV seem to achieve tremendous sugar content at full ripeness and I don’t know that you’d be happy with the product if the grapes were picked earlier. While I used to think that vintners waited for extreme sugar numbers to embolden their wines, I’m starting to believe it has more to do with vineyard siting than annual winemaking decisions.
@KitMarlot @rpm
Not the winemaker, but a winemaker
Good question. Here’s how I see it.
Let’s start with physiology and climate. Grape vines are designed to mature their seeds and then to attract birds to swallow them, fly away and shit them out in the next county, thus spreading the plant’s reproductive zone. Before the seed is mature, the berry must hide and even repel the bird - at veraision, the berry is already 12 brix - half again the sugar of a ripe tomato, this highly nutritious. It remains hard, green, bitter, low in flavor except pyrazine (bell pepper flavor) and is very high in malic acid so it tastes bland, harsh and sour.
Once the seed is mature and viable, the vines races to reverse these characteristics. The berry swell and softens. Many fruity flavors are manufactured such as terpenes, thiols and cinnamic acid derivatives that comprise varietal character. In reds, anthocyanins render the grape highly visible and in whites, color changes from green to golden. The malic acid is respired to make energy to pump high amounts of sugar into the berry. Yum! When all this is complete, the berry is ripe. This process simply takes time. We will be picking our Riesling in Alexander Valley in mid-October on the same day as they do in Geisenheim on the 50th parallel. They hope to get 17 brix (spaetlese) while we hope for less than 26 brix.
Far too much emphasis is placed on temperature. The elevated sugar levels we see in California are due to low humidity, not temperature. I invented a dealcoholization process using distillation of reverse osmosis permeate to overcome this impediment so I can make European-style wines with good varietal and regional character and good structure by uncoupling the phenolic ripeness decision from brix, which only predicts alcohol, not ripeness.
Unfortunately, any California wineries let their grapes hang well beyond the ripe stage and allow raisining. The result is a deterioration of varietal and appellation-based flavors and instead results in port-like, fruit forward wines that are yummy in the short term and then dry out and fall apart in the cellar. I call these “clown wines.”
One unfortunate motivation to let grapes shrivel is to cheat the grower. It is common practice to pick at 29 brix instead of 24, thus shrinking the yield from 4 tons per acre to 3, and then at the winery adding back a ton of water. This is thievery, because that water belongs to the grower.
All this applies doubly to Zinfandel. Because it ripens unevenly in many sites, you can find green berries and raisins on the same cluster. The temptation is to hang it until there are no green berries. The result is an impactful, high alcohol fruit bomb that is great to guzzle with barbecue but has no shelf life.
In the '70s, wineries like Clos Du Val and Sutter Home made extraordinary wines through careful viticculture and selective picking. The '72 Clos Du Val and the '68 Deaver Vineyard are still wonderfully alive today. Scott Harvey’s wines and the Terra D’Oro Deaver Zin are examples of what is still being done in this restrained style. These wines develop very sexy aged characteristics similar to Rieslings - bay leaf, Asian spice, cardamom accenting their rich raspberry fruit.
In early spring we will release our '19 Grist Vineyard Dry Creek Zin also in this style. I consider Dry Creek Zinfandel to be the most classically European in its firm, solid tannins,and I’m sure this wine is no exception.
@KitMarlot @winesmith I will defer to Clark as the professional here, but my experience over the past 60 odd years of drinking Sonoma County Zinfandel, much of it from the Healdsburg, Alexander Valley, Dry Creek Valley areas suggests a few observations:
in general (and taking into account differences in labeling
regulations) Zinfandel is produced at significantly higher alcohol
levels today than in was in 1960 or 1970. I know some of
those wines could last 50 years, because I have drunk them at 50.
in general, the fruit is being picked at higher sugar levels
(expressed as degrees Brix) than they were 30, 40, 50 and 60 years
ago.
combinations of different styles of trellising, canopy
management, irrigation and cluster management have affected the
sugar levels at which the fruit reaches ‘phenolic ripeness’.
there have been several waves beginning with the ‘no wimpy wines’
movement in the ‘70s of demand for high alcohol, very ripe (overripe
to me) wines, followed by a drop in demand for them, rinse and
repeat at least twice.
table wines made from very / over ripe grapes are generally
unbalanced in one or more ways and rarely age very well over the
medium to long run.
wines made from very ripe grapes tend to have a bit more residual
sugar (or at least seem to) and that sweetness is actually preferred
by many drinkers who say they prefer dry wine.
Part of this trend is a byproduct of the Parkerization of the
business - he being the one who champions fruit forward, but not
very well balanced wines.
@KitMarlot @rpm @winesmith Wow, absolutely stunning write-up (dissertation?) but helps explain so much. Also now I have learned a new term “clown wines.”
@KitMarlot @pmarin @winesmith I think Clark’s term clown wines for the phenomenon he describes and we both decry is far too mild a term of condemnation for them. They are a perversion of the winemaker’s art and a crime against the collective conscience of gods of wine.
@KitMarlot @rpm I agree on all seven points, though I think Parker-bashing is overdone.
Here’s a bit of history. Post WWII enology ushered in the German system of reductive winemaking for the first time by employing inert gas and stainless steel. This allowed production of fresh whites - a very new phenomenon. Not to be outdone, Emil Peynaud and the Bordelais winemakers employed the same techniques on reds, with disastrous results. It took fifty years to figure out that skillful application of enological oxygen is the key to great reds.
Before this was re-learned, the Australian flying winemakers solved the problem of overly reductive reds through extended hang time. This is where the practice started, and is still today a legitimate practice for making user-friendly, fruit-forward wines for immediate consumption. Making these wines requires little skill in the cellar but great care in the vineyard to prevent excessive “field oxidation” which robs the wine of longevity. The technique resulted in a fiasco in the 1997 vintage of Barolos, where the postmodern movement has learn that this is a bad idea for vins de garde, i.e. reserve wines intended for development over decades.
So today we have “Coastal” wines at $10-$15 for early consumption and Reserve wines for aging.
@winesmith Grist Vineyard! Legendary. My first zin from this vineyard was from Bradford Mountain winery. Not sure if they are still around. Looking forward to your release! Will this be your first zin?
@KitMarlot @winesmith Fair enough on the Parker-bashing… but the man doesn’t understand Cabernet Sauvignon and its relatives and for that alone I can’t respect him… Though you’re right about the post-WWII introduction of stainless steel and inert gas, I remind you fresh whites were made before that … think of that 1934 French Colombard they made and crown seal bottled at Davis that they open in the late ‘70s or early 80s and it was a fresh young wine! My great uncles (who were 19th century graduate oenologists from Conegliano) told of making very fresh whites before Prohibition, though the fashion then was mostly for Riesling in high end whites… though they said those Rieslings were not the dull (often oxidized) California Rieslings I remember from the 1960s… what a revelation it was when I was first served good Rhein Riesling! I also think there has always been a real distinction between wines made to age and wines for everyday consumption… what may be newer is the making of big wines from the grapes that used to be reserved for reserve wines, for current consumption. As far as I can tell, there simply weren’t enough of those grapes to even think about something like that when I was a lad in the late 1950s.
@losthighwayz I’ve made quite a bit of Zinfandel over the years for myself and for clients, but this will be the first WineSmith Zinfandel. It’s a hell of a start.
@KitMarlot @rpm @winesmith
I noticed your reference to “no wimpy wines”, and unsurprisingly thought of Ravenswood. You may have heard, Joel Peterson was able to buy back a bunch of old Ravenswood wines from the 80s through mid 2000s and he’s sold them via his new winery. I’ve had several now, and these are balanced and age worthy wines. My favourite thus far has been a 1993 Los Chamizal Zin.
@KitMarlot @klezman @rpm @winesmith
Also his whole “no wimpy wines” thing was to get people to stop drinking white zinfandel not to promote bigger wines.
@klezman @ScottW58
or only ‘well aged’ white zin.
@klezman @rjquillin @ScottW58
Brown bag horribly aged white zin…
I think Scott won the zin off, IIRC.
@rpm These wines will go a lot longer than the next year or two. Period. The 18 went to bottle sooner because it was just ready sooner, but both wines have nice, clean fruit expression and plenty of tannin—mainly of the grape variety with a relatively light touch on oak. These are not hyper new school Zins, either from a philosophy or technical perspective.
@KitMarlot @rpm @winesmith Hey Clark, thanks for chiming in here.
You forgot one way to have Zin hang too long—the vyd manager is 7 days late on your pick call.
Dick’s fruit for this wine comes from my pick call on the same vyd for Meeker, and while it’s a difficult spot to get a good sample on (both due to it being a combination of two blocks that don’t ripen together and having—like almost all Zin in middle DCV now—a non-zero amount of virus), we really embrace the ripeness variety that each facet of this head-trained vyd, some virus, and Zin’s nature add to the equation.
For Dick’s wines, we work hard to balance accessibility with an ultimately relatively acidic, tannin-forward style that is generally 3.45-3.6 pH and most importantly <1 g/L GF.
I know I don’t need to further explain those things to you but in general for these wines we’re looking for that sweet spot of friendly, fruit-fronted wines that are still very proud of their structure and honor the long heritage of overtly rustic charm and dense structure that DCV was built on, which of course means they still have the legs to go 10-15 at the very least.
@KitMarlot @lucasmeeker @winesmith Thanks very much for adding these thoughts and information. I’m sure you understand where our upfront concerns come from, and am glad you can address them!
@KitMarlot @lucasmeeker @rpm @winesmith
Yes, thanks for dropping by.
Just wish it would have been while the offer was live…
and what is G/F for the uninitiated?
@KitMarlot @rpm @winesmith To put it incredibly bluntly, to prejudge a wine’s style and age ability because of its alcohol is a broken model. I could give you a treatise on it, but I’ll instead give you one specific part of that treatise.
Wines increase in alcohol as the barrel age because of the nature of evaporation of an ethanol solution in barrel. So, from a purely winemaking standpoint, it’s perfectly possible that I could pick and press a 13.5% Zin that needed 24-30 in barrel and end up with a 15.4% wine.
So what would that tell you about ripeness?
Alcohol does have an effect on rate of aging in bottle, but not to an extent where it should add into a consumer’s expectation equation.
What you should actually be paying attention to as a predictor of style, execution, and aging is pH and RS. But even that isn’t close to perfect, but it’s way better than using the labeled alcohol content of a wine (which if you don’t already know has a habit of being wildly inaccurate).
@KitMarlot @rjquillin @rpm @winesmith Glucose/Fructose—the fermentable sugars in grapes. 10 g/L is 1.0% residual sugar. 1 g/L is 0.1%. Under 1 g/L is bottle stable naturally without sterile filtration.
This is why “off-dry” table wines are a contemporary phenomenon. Before we had 0.45 micron absolute filtration, we didn’t really have the option to bottle a wine at 7 g/L as a “dry wine” without making inadvertent sparkling.
@KitMarlot @lucasmeeker @rpm This is a good point about barrel aging in California. It happens in air-conditioned warehouses because they dry the air, thus water evaporates preferentially and alcohols go up. The best solution is to age in a cave. In those conditions, the air comes into equilibrium and is nearly saturated with humidity, so the alcohol evaporates preferentially and the ABV goes down. It’s a little tricky. You have to be careful not to be above 80% humidity or you get mold.On the other hand, it reduces your shrinkage from about 4% per year to about 1%.
@winesmith Thank you for still being here. I love to learn from you.
@KitMarlot @rpm @winesmith We’re night air only and average around 60-65% humidity and still see about 0.5-0.8 gain per year in bbl.
Moreover, we tried solving it with humidity, but anything above 70% was starting to grow dangerous kinds of mold.
A little easier to use a non-splitting alc-removal RO.
@KitMarlot @lucasmeeker @rpm @winesmith That’s super interesting - I’ve always wondered why alcohol would increase with barrel aging when it has a lower evaporation point and vapour pressure. If I’m interpreting correctly it’s because the air conditioning and generally low humidity of California inland of the first coast range keeps removing water from consideration so you need to keep evaporating it.
@KitMarlot @klezman @rpm @winesmith It’s not just air conditioning. It’s the nature of not aging underground. Our building does not have HVAC and we actively keep it as humid as possible, alc still climbs.
@KitMarlot @klezman @lucasmeeker @rpm There is no snark happening here. Instead, we have an honest and open exchange of view at a high technilogical level without apology or deceit. This is what we need if we are to heal the bad marriage between the earnest winemakers and dedicated winemakers that currently exists. A plague on your houses who hurl insults while we are trying to heal these wounds.
Any rats on the way?
If my memory serves me well there were fires in Sonoma in 2017. Any smoke taint?
Would be great to have Lucas on here!
@losthighwayz Yes there were fires but they did not affect the fruit in 2017 unlike in 2020. Lucas might pipe in at some point. Thanks for your question!
@losthighwayz Hi! This fruit was off weeks before the ‘17 fires, so no worries there. FWIW, the 17 wines we made for Meeker and our clients that did have exposure have all stayed appreciably clean thus far, and some of them are excellent.
Sounds divine, I’m full with a case on the way. I’m in for 4 though!
/giphy arctic-arctic-ice
I received a bottle of
2018 Denier-Handal Zinfandel
last Thursday afternoon. I’m a big fan of Zinfandel, so this was a very happy surprise. I was cooking Indian Butter Chicken for dinner, which is not a traditional pairing, but I was game to try.
!Bottle of Denier-Handal Zinfandel and glass of the wine][1]
[1]:
First impressions
Visuals: The wine is deep ruby or garnet in color, slightly translucent, with thick, long-lasting legs.
Nose: I found the nose, immediately upon opening the bottle, not much to remark on. It was closed with notes of cherries and oak. After about 20 minutes in the glass, the wine opened considerably. I found dark cherry and plum, chai spices, and cedar on the nose. It’s not overpowering, but well balanced.
Flavors: Immediately upon opening I found the flavor to be a little acidic and tannic, with red fruit, like raspberries, on the front. After 20 minutes in the glass, the wine mellowed and the acid and tannins melted away. Spices, like black pepper, cardamom, and clove are on the front. Dark fruit, like plums and blackberries permeate, with a hint of juniper on the finish. And speaking of the finish, it is long and slightly oaky.
I can’t say that it paired particularly well with butter chicken, but that isn’t the fault of the wine. It was very easy drinking, if lacking a bit of complexity.
On Friday, I prepared spaghetti with veal meatballs. This was a significantly better pairing.
Friday Tasting
Thursday night I put the cork back in the bottle and left it on the counter. Room temp is about 68 to 70 degrees.
Visuals: No change from the first impression.
Nose: The nose is more muted than it was the first day, but still presents red and black fruits, a hint of spice, and a little minerality.
Flavors: The flavor has softened quite a bit. The acid and tannins are almost completely gone. In their place is dark fruit, a slight astringency like Juniper berry, and minerality. But the real change happened when I paired it with my spaghetti and veal meatball dinner. With the food, the wine became more complex and more flavorful. It brought out the fruit (strawberry, raspberry, and black plums), the pepper mellowed into Chinese Five Spice, and there was a hint of minerality on the finish.
In conclusion, I believe that this Zinfandel is a great everyday drinker, but it becomes a star with the right food pairing. It would rise to the occasion with rich foods, beef, veal, and cheeses. It would make a great pairing with a holiday roast or soufflé. I think the $15/bottle case price is good QPR.
@gemeinschaft79 Thank you for reviewing. interesting how it compared with the 2 very different meals.
@WCCWineGirl I agree. I was surprised it was so different between the two meals. I think it shines best with rich food like beef and cheese. I liked it a lot of it’s own, but paired with those meatballs, it made me wish I hadn’t “wasted” two glasses of it on Thursday with the butter chicken.
@gemeinschaft79 Our go to pairing with Indian food is Barbera, but if we’re out we usually go for a zin. Tastes good with Ghobi Manchurian, and is adequate with the Chicken Tikka Masala (similar to butter chicken).
On a rainy Friday evening in December, at the end of a difficult work week, our tasting of the
2017 Denier-Handal Zinfandel
gave a little clarity to the pandemic chaos. As our son boisterously played video games in the other room, we set out the remnants of Thanksgiving appetizer cheeses and uncorked the bottle.
On first pour, the wine had a ruby color, jewel-like in its clarity. In contrast, the nose was slightly woody (a green wood) with blackberry and plum fruit and a hint of licorice in the finish. All this promised complexity.
A first taste yielded blackberry, currant, and pomegranate with a hint of strawberry. With the different cheeses, the various facets of the wine emerged. With the cranberry Stilton, the fruit came forward. With the taleggio, the wine fell flat and slightly bitter. A plain goat cheese was more or less as expected, with its earthiness teasing out a creaminess in the wine.
As dinner cooked, we set the wine aside to breathe for about a half hour. On second tasting the various fruits blossomed: plum and quince, cherry and strawberry. Unlike many zinfandels, we detected little pepper. Rather, the wine yielded the comforting holiday spices of clove and allspice, a gentle passage to comfort on a cold night. The color had become duskier, less jewel-like, but richer for the transformation.
We paired the wine with a steak finished with black pepper, garlic and thyme butter. The wine was slightly overwhelmed by the pepper and herbaceous thyme, which diminished the spice and flattened the fruit. We felt the wine might pair better with a pork dish, or even a rich chicken. Or, maybe, a holiday clove studded and honey basted ham (hint, hint, nudge, nudge)?
After over an hour of breathing, in the afterglow of dinner, the dark berries promised on first taste fully emerged: blackberry, blueberry, and licorice in the finish. Although we didn’t have dessert, we thought this wine could pair with cheesecake, pumpkin pie, or even a Dutch apple pie.
At 15%, the alcohol level was a little high for one taster, who left the table buzzed, but the other taster was ready to open another bottle! Although we contemplated leaving some for a second tasting, no bottle lasts overnight in this house!
In short, this wine is fruity, balanced, and infinitely drinkable on its own. It would pair particularly well with slightly sweet, spicy holiday dishes.
We agreed that $25-$30 a bottle would be reasonable for this bottle. At this price, we’ll probably do a case.
Oh, and apologies for no pics. This is our first rattage.
@lionel47 Thanks for great descriptive write-up. Photos aren’t essential so I wouldn’t worry about that, though I sometimes do like the photos especially if they have cats!
@lionel47 Thank you for the review. Your end-of-week Friday evening during a pandemic is relatable.
@lionel47 Plenty of people prefer that rats don’t post pictures, unless they show the wine against a white background. This is your community, do what you want!
@lionel47 Thank you for your descriptions and for tasting our wine!
@Doralice Thanks for the sample. Really enjoyed it.
@lionel47 some would say if you leave the table buzzed after wine then it must have been some good juice!
@Twich22 We thought it was very good juice.
@KitMarlot @lionel47 I do remember a debate a few weeks ago about pictures. I can go either way on it. First we will side-step the issue of cats because of course that is always good.
So ignoring cats, which can be hard to do because they don’t want you to ignore them, I do find that pictures of the wine in glass have been extremely helpful in some cases. like where we had a 15+ year-old white wine, and you wanted to see if there was any of the amber tint that might mean some oxidation. Also sometimes we get a back label of the bottle which can be interesting (for some reason this site doesn’t post multiple views on the sale page except in rare cases). The pictures of delicious food are inspiring, but mostly just make me hungry and jealous. But I’m OK with it.
anyone on the Hudson, WI area want to split a case? i’m in MN, about 30 min from Hudson.
@carl669 MN now added
@carl669 Yes, sorry for our mistake on not originally including MN.
Would love to split a case. Anyone around Vegas want in on the other half? Ping me.
2017 Denier-Handal Zinfandel Dry Creek Valley
I am delighted to report on this wine, which arrived a few days ago-- my first lab rat venture. I received a bottle from the 2017 vintage. I poured some into a glass and immediately noticed its color, a bright red that truly sparkled, and its noticeable legs. Nice. The aroma was on the light side, as is its taste – definitely light for a zinfandel, but its delicate spice overtones make it unquestionably a zinfandel. It has a really pleasant taste and a lovely, long finish that lingers with overtones of vanilla (or almond?).
The first evening, I had it with a beef dish marinated in soy sauce, ginger and garlic. The two married well. The second evening, I paired it with a roasted tomato sauce over pasta. Even better. Plus, the wine had opened up more; it was a bit brighter and fuller—come into its own, perhaps.
I had two friends taste it, as well. My next-door neighbor, who has served as a lab rat in the past, confirmed my findings, as did my other friend, with whom I often split cases. We all agree you can’t go wrong with this wine. It’s smooth and balanced and, more than likely, quite versatile when pairing it with food. And I now see it is not available in NH, which is where we live, making me all the more appreciative for having had the chance to enjoy it.
To answer a question posted on the discussion: I did not find the wine jammy.
@ehengen awesome, and thank you for answering my question!
MEALS! DEALS! EELS! AWESOME!
@ehengen Thank you for the report. Nice of you to share with others.
/giphy crisp-flannel-popcorn
Thank you all for your reports on our wine! Love that you could taste chai spice and quince. Yes, we get nervous when we get to descriptions like “jammy”. A dense spicy blackberry conserve would be more like it. Definitely love that these wines pair with more complex dishes as well as the comforting spaghetti and meatballs.
While there were fires to the south and east of Dry Creek Valley, the grapes didn’t suffer smoke taint which is a blessing. Not like the 2020 harvest where we were not able to buy fruit from Dry Creek Valley.
@Doralice thank you for chiming in. What is your role with the winery? In for a case BTW
@losthighwayz Hi! I am learning the ropes from my father Dick Handal. I am managing website sales and getting the word out.
/giphy crystalline-memorable-vixen
/giphy dickensian-cold-chestnut
So, what does ‘2 year old barrel’ mean? Was it sitting empty in a warehouse for further seasoning? Did it hold one wine for the duration of the first two years of its life? Something else entirely?
@KitMarlot I have always assumed it meant it held wine for 2 years previously. But now that you mention it, it’s a bit ambiguous.
@KitMarlot It means the barrel was used for two years (and I believe two fills) before its use on this wine. (Good) New barrels give for 7 ish years or at least three fills, with some superstar coopers seeming to have notable give even up to 9 or 10.
My trimphant-twinkling-snowglobe is scheduled to arrive after January 7, which actually made me happy. Much love, blessings, and thanks to all of you out there delivering our packages right now.
DC & MN now added
@WCCWineGirl Great! Thank you. Sorry for our mistake!
Let me ask the group this.
With my wife pregnant and our current stock pile, I would be 3-5 years from drinking this.
Is that beneficial or a negative to the wine?
@Drez143 Depends how you like your Zin…
@Drez143 The wine won’t be as fruit forward as it is now, but as one of the people who made it I can assure you it will be—provided you like your Zin more complex and can store it properly—better.
/giphy celebrated-philanthropic-dasher
Thank you all for supporting our small family winery and for being longtime fans of Dick Handal.
/giphy tiny-furry-snow
