Type: Red
Country: USA
Region: California, Solano County Green Valley
Grape Variety: 100% Zinfandel
Alcohol Percentage: 13.5%
Viticulture: Natural Wine | Organic Farming
Terroir: Wirth Vineyard’s Zinfandel was planted in 1948 on the vineyard’s hillside and thrives in the volcanic, iron-rich soils. The old vines are dry-farmed with low yields – getting 1 ton per acre. Steve Wirth took over farming from his dad a few decades ago. He farms the vineyard using no synthetic herbicides, pesticides or fertilizers
Ageing: Zinfandel first came to California during the Gold Rush. It grows beautifully here – thriving in California’s soil. The fruit is destemmed into 5-ton stainless steel open-top fermenters, where it naturally fermented, then aged in 60 gallons neutral French Oak barrels for 10 months
Color: Dark red
Nose: Fruit-forward nose with hints of spices
Palate: Lively with pronounced acidity in a concentrated body with a beautiful tannic structure. The wine also exudes notes of cloves and cherries
About the Winery:
After growing up in Nebraska and working in Seattle, Chris Brockway arrived in California to study winemaking. Following a textbook education at UC Davis and Fresno State, Chris’s experience of drinking and enjoying more low-intervention wines persuaded him to take a somewhat different path to most of his classmates. In 2002, he began working at an urban winery in Oakland, before leaving in 2006 to set up his own label from a small industrial unit in Berkeley. Today he runs his operation from a bigger premise around the corner, but the focus remains producing wines from organic or biodynamic fruit in a decidedly hands-off fashion – natural ferments and no additions.
Chris is an open-minded and innovative winemaker and his winery reflects this, packed from floor to ceiling with the innumerable projects that he has on the go at any one time. Terracotta fermentation vessels (based loosely on amphorae) full of Nero d’Avola vie for space with sealed tanks of Carignan going through carbonic maceration and a lineup of majestic open-top wood fermenters.
At Broc Cellars, all of their wines are made using spontaneous fermentation, a process that means they only use native yeasts and bacteria that exist on the grapes in order to make wine. They don’t add anything – this includes nutrients, yeast, bacteria, enzymes, tannins or other popular fermentation agents. Sulphur is a naturally occurring element in all wine, the amount found can vary. They add little to no S02, depending on the wine and style. The grapes that they work with are grown without using synthetic pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, or fertilizers.
“Our goal in making wine is to bring out the natural expression of the grape. We decide on a wine by wine basis how we want to do that. We have more freedom now to make the choice not to add Sulphur. There is a bigger market for us to go in the direction we want to go. To counter that we are doing more to ensure our vineyards are using the farming practices we support. We’re also committed to detailing exactly what decisions we make during the course of our winemaking process.” – Chris Brockway