Whitcraft Zinfandel Clements Hills Stampede Vineyard 2023

Big brambleberry on the nose, red licorice, purple fruit and flowers, and a touch of Nor-Cal air (pine trees and old oaks, red dirt and granite) in the glass. The mouth is silk, pure silk. Delicious Bing Cherry and baking spice.

These grapes come from 100-year-old vines in the Stampede Vineyard that are organically dry-farmed in Lodi right on the Mokelumne River. The Block is planted 95% Zinfandel and the remaining 5% is a mix of Alicante Bouschet, Grenache, Pais and Petit Syrah. Soils are a mix of sand and volcanic. Vines are head-trained and planted on their own rootstock.

Grapes are handpicked and sorted. They’re lightly trodden by foot allowing carbonic to start. A pied de cuvee made from sampling juice is added to kick start fermentation. The wine is blanketed with CO2 until the cuvee is generating its own. After around three days when the skins start to loosen manual punchdowns are started once or twice per day. After 12 days the cap is lifted and the wine is drained through a sieve, there’s no pumping -- everything is by gravity. Free run juice goes to single vineyard cuvees. The wine rests in barrels for around 11 months, with 10-15ppm SO2 added in December. Wines are unfined, clarification is through gentle racking. Bottling is by hand. Only 88 cases produced.

The Stampede Vineyard is farmed by the family & originally planted on its own roots in the 1920s. It is located 25 miles northeast of Lodi in the village of Clements where the valley gives way to the rolling foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. It sits adjacent to the Clements Buckaroos Rodeo Grounds where the country's largest amateur rodeo, The Clements Stampede, takes place each Fall.