Ravenswood Icon 2003 $20.00
This mélange of Syrah, Greneache and Mourvedre has a nose chock full of black fruit and minerals. The palate is quite full, fruit laden and steely with a finish of dark fruit confit.  Find this wine

Ravenswood Zen of Zin 2004 Old Vine $18.00
This is kiddie Zin. Made to attract the tastes of a younger demographic. It is full of sweet sweet zinberry, cherry cola and leaves a creamy note on the close. Find this wine

Ravenswood Lodi Zinfandel 2004 $15.00
This Zin shows lots of dusty, cocoa along with sweet blackberry, black cherry and blueberry aromas. I find it a trifle hot on the finish, but the tasty layer of dark fruit and couveture chocolate helps to tone down the heat. Find this wine

Ravenswood Napa Zinfandel 2004 $15.00
I find this has more concentration and better structure than the Lodi rendition. There are plenty of sweet Asian spices, along with plum, raspberry and dark fruit. The acids are lively and the finish has good length. Find this wine

Ravenswood Sonoma Zinfandel 2004 $17.50
Notes of coffee and vanilla are subdued by an up front and powerful layer of freshly baked blackberry pie and raspberry puree. The fruit seems more focused than the Napa bottling, the finish is creamy and has plenty of dusty chocolate tannin. Find this wine

Ravenswood Estate Merlot 2002 $25.00
A lively wine with a nose full of blackberry, red cherry, plum and anise. The mid palate is fruit focused and the tannins appear nicely integrated.  Find this wine

Ravenswood’s single vineyard designate wines:

Ravenswood Monte Rosso Vineyard 2002 $32.00
Monte Rosso is one of the oldest vineyards in Sonoma County. It is located on the Mayacamas range at over 1,000 feet elevation. It is named for its distinct red soil comprised of mineral-rich decomposed volcanic rock. The nose offers lots of spicy dark fruit, Dutch liquorish, vanilla, underbrush and wet leaves. The palate is ripe and rich; the finish shows black cherry and cinnamon. It needs time.  Find this wine



Ravenswood  Cooke Vineyard 2002 $50.00
Cooke Vineyard is about 25 years old, and is about one mile from Ravenswood in the Mayacamas Mountain Range. The vineyard is located on Admiral Cooke Road. A really ripe and spicy Zin that offers earthy mineral notes with rhubarb, a solid core of red fruit and cinnamon. It is not the biggest wine on the palate, but it is elegant and very complex. The palate shows tons of raspberry and strawberry fruit flavors, decent acid, and plenty of tannin. Find this wine

Ravenswood  Barricia Vineyard 2002 $32.00
Many of the ten acres of Zinfandel vines here are 100 plus years old. The Petite Syrah was planted in 1998. The soil is composed of volcanic cobble red clay loam.  This exudes some pretty notes of raspberry, plum, lavender and balsa. The mid palate is still quite tight and revealing little. It too needs time. 19% of the wine from this vintage is composed of Petite Syrah. Maybe that’s why? Find this wine

Ravenswood  Pickberry Vineyard 1999 Sonoma Mountain $NA
This field blend of 72% Merlot, 26% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Cab Franc has a massive nose of black raspberry ripple, cake spice and lavender. Secondary notes of stewed plum, cherry, dried morel, wet leaves, clove and tobacco are all lurking beneath. The finish is dusty, with a whack of fruit and an earthy quality that is so appealing. Quite lovely indeed.  Find this wine

Ravenswood Gregory Vineyard, Sonoma Valley 2001. $30.00
This ten-acre clay/loam vineyard southeast of Sonoma was planted in 1945 with Cabernet Sauvignon. In 1983 five acres of Merlot were planted and in 1987 Ravenswood began to source fruit from this locale. There are notes of minty Eucalyptus, some dark berry, blueberry coulis and red liquorish. It is kind of light on the palate and the finish, although clean and well balanced, chooses not to hang around. Find this wine

Joel Peterson happened to be in the winery while I tasted and I had the chance to meet with him. He is a soft-spoken, but passionate man, who took time from his schedule to open bottles of the currently unreleased 2004 for yours truly to sample.

Ravenswood Dickerson Vineyard 2004
This ten-acre plot due south of St Helena is deep in the heart of Napa Valley. The eucalyptus-lined vineyard is full of old, dry-farmed, head-pruned vines of Zinfandel that produce extraordinary bright, elegant, sumptuous and aromatic wines.  According to Ravenswood's website, 4 acres were planted 1930, 3 acres were planted in 1979,  and 3 acres planted in 1985.  We started here as Joel considers it to be the lighter of his single vineyard wines, though by no means “wimpy." It is full of aromas of raspberry and cedar augmented by a lively streak of acid, Szechuan peppercorns, tree bark and earth. The palate is so well balanced and full of raspberry fruit, vanilla and a trace of white pepper.  Find this wine

Ravenswood Belloni Vineyard Russian River 2004
This 90 something vineyard is full of Zinfandel, Carignane, Alicante Bouschet, and Petite Sirah. Ravenswood started purchasing this fruit from Ricardo Belloni, a native of the village of Varsi in Emilia Romagna, in 1991. Russian River’s cool location means this is often the last vineyard harvested for Ravenswood.  All the grapes used in this blend are fermented together. This produces a wine full of Moroccan spice, black fruit, boysenberry and Ribena. Right now it is tightly wound, very creamy and really needs a lot of time to come around.  Find this wine

Ravenswood Barricia Vineyard 2004
Each wine in this flight gets progressively darker. Joel lets me know “we have moved out of the subtle wines section.” These small berry clusters produced a wine that bellows aromas of blackberry, boysenberry, cherry and cassis. The tannin grips, white pepper hits the palate, but the fruit controls the finish. Try this in ten years, no less, and you will have a winner! Find this wine

Ravenswood Teldeschi Vineyard, Dry Creek Sonoma 2004
Franco Teldeschi moved from Italy to California and started growing grapes to sell to fellow countrymen in San Francisco. When Ravenswood was a fledgling winery in the early seventies, Joel Peterson, so impressed after a session with a bottle or two of Franco’s homemade wine one afternoon, agreed to purchase a couple of tons. A power lunch sales trick from bygone decades!  Today Frank's son John is also a grape grower, and the Teldeschis still sell fruit to home winemakers. But a few years ago their truck blew up near the Golden Gate Bridge, so John doesn't deliver grapes to San Francisco any more. This turned out to be another break for Joel, who swears that he didn't do anything to the truck but does now produce a wine made exclusively from Teldeschi grapes. Some of the vines are 90 years old, and the grapes are the classic Italian-Californian field blend: Zinfandel, Petite Sirah and Carignane.

Certainly the darkest wine of the 04’s this wine exudes aromas of dark cherry, vanilla, chocolate, Asian spice and black fruit. It is highly extracted to the point were the concentration of fruit gives one a false impression of the tannins that lie beneath. It is going to be a stunner, but it will need time to reach that pinnacle.  Find this wine

Reporting from the valley,

CZ

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