Named after his property’s original winery, built in 1906, Radio-Coteau’s Zinfandel hails from a small block of old Zinfandel vines planted in 1946. These gnarly old gobelet vines give extremely low yields, with crops of less than a tonne per acre the norm. As any Californian grower worth their salt will tell you, Zinfandel is notoriously difficult to grow, with wildly variable ripeness within the bunches. Hence, sorting in the vineyard and winery to remove underripe and overripe berries is an essential part of the process.
Handpicked fruit was destemmed and fermented in small open-top fermenters. Vinification was gentle, and only the free-run juice was used. The wine matured in puncheons and barrels for 20 months, with a negligible portion of new oak. Sussman finds barriques and bottle-aging essential to soften the assertive nature of Zinfandel’s tannins. In contrast to the more opulent, heady Zinfandel wines from warmer zones, Radio-Coteau’s Zinfandel is cast in the coastal mould: higher in acid, bone dry and with stuffing and structure to improve for years.