Dashe Cellars 'Vineyard Select' Zinfandel 2023

Dashe Cellars has built a reputation as one of the standard bearers for a leaner, spicier style of California Zinfandel, one that trades jammy extraction for structure and lift. Michael and Anne Dashe founded the winery in 1996 after Michael's own path through Château Lafite-Rothschild and Ridge Vineyards, and they've run it since as a family-owned artisan operation out of Oakland's Urban Wine Country, seeking out older vines on steep hillside sites with rocky soils and low yields across Sonoma, Contra Costa, and Mendocino. This Vineyard Select bottling blends fruit primarily from small production vineyards in Contra Costa and Clarksburg, built around Zinfandel with small additions of Teroldego and Tannat that each ferment separately on native yeast before coming together for aging in one year or older French oak, a practicing organic approach that keeps the wine honest to its sites rather than polished into something generic. In the glass it shows ripe, concentrated dark fruit and cherry with pronounced floral lift up front, moving into a supple, medium bodied palate with soft tannins and a savory finish marked by black pepper, roasted sage, and a touch of gravelly minerality. 750ml | California, USA