2016 Estate Vineyard Zinfandel - Gundlach Bundschu Winery

Dried blackberry, hot bramble, dehydrated red cherry. Baked plum, assorted peppercorn, blueberry preserves. Thick thorny briar and shaved cedar, dried dill and over-steeped black tea. Stewed strawberry, medjool date, and desiccated raspberry form a dense and saturated core of plush fruit that stomps unabated through bougainvillea groves and overgrown shrubbery. Tree bark and jalapeño emerge to provide complicating natural spice as vanilla and cinnamon candy impart sweet confectionery relief. Wrought iron and asphalt combine with notes of dark roast coffee to leave a rugged, brawny, and masculine impression that rides the wake of bold and assertive fruit. Full bodied, rich, and substantial; expressing impressive complexity and balance with a backing of medium tannin and mild acidity. This 2016 Estate Vineyard Zinfandel by Gundlach Bundschu Winery is an assertive, expressive, and characterful red from the Sonoma Valley.

Originally founded by Jacob Gundlach in 1858, Gundlach Bundschu is California's second oldest commercial winery and the oldest to be continuously family owned. It is now led by the Gundlach family's 6th generation who operate it out of their original 320 acre estate vineyard located due east of the town of Sonoma. This bottling, crafted by Gundlach Bundschu using Zinfandel sourced from a portion of the vineyard planted in 1976, is an impressive expression of what this stalwart estate can produce. While ripe, fruit-forward, and quite concentrated this wine contains impressive amounts of depth and complexity. It manages to express both great breadth and wonderful nuance with heaping doses of Zin's textbook spice and feral nuances to back its assertive fruit. Simply a beautifully archetypal Zinfandel from a truly Californian producer.