Dusty blackberry, parched earth, dark plum skin. Dehydrated blueberry, soy sauce, dried cranberry. Prickly briar and desert flowers, cracked pepper and Asian spice. Slightly shriveled black and red wild berries rest atop dry straw in a box made of musty old cedar. Worn leather and wafts of barnyard & sesame oil paradoxically drag you simultaneously through a ghost town and a busy Chinese kitchen. This 2013 Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel by Optima Winery is complex, savory, and introspective.

Plantings of Zinfandel are commonplace all over the state of California. While this rugged grape is adaptable and can survive in many unique soils and climates it arguably reaches its most complex and complete expression in the Dry Creek Valley appellation of Sonoma County. Zin has been growing in Dry Creek for hundreds of years, and some of the states oldest living Zinfandel vineyards still exist here. Arid summer days work in combination with cool nights to ease this notoriously uneven ripening grape variety along until it is perfectly ready to pick. Loamy soils of sedimentary and volcanic origin provide little in the way of nutrients which lends to tense, earthy, and concentrated fruit. This bottling, crafted from 96% Zin plus a dash of Petite Sirah, is a tremendous expression of this region's top grape. A few years in bottle have integrated the fruit perfectly into characterfully spiced umami brambliness. This stuff simply is utterly delicious in every way, and again proves why Dry Creek Valley Zin is so highly revered.