Peterson Winery Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel 2021
£24.25
The wine
Subtle berry and toasty oak aromas lead to a delicious, mouth-coating palate of richness, complexity, spice and earthiness. The luscious fruit is seamlessly balanced by the oak and a restrained tannic structure, through to a long, seductive finish.
Dry Creek Valley is Zinfandel country, a narrow Sonoma valley of gravelly benchland and hillside where the grape has been grown since the nineteenth century. It is widely held to be the finest address for the variety anywhere, and Peterson have farmed there since the early 1990s.
The producer
Peterson Winery
View all Peterson Winery winesFred Peterson is an iconoclast with an old-world winemaking philosophy and a long commitment to sustainable farming. From 1985 to 1990 he was vineyard manager at the legendary Ridge Vineyards, and he founded his own operation in the Dry Creek Valley in Sonoma.
The approach has a name: Zero Manipulation. It means low-tech, high-touch winemaking, native fermentations, minimal additions and no corrections, on the principle that the vintage and the vineyard should reach the bottle unedited. It is a philosophy far more common in Europe than in California, and Peterson have been doing it since long before it was fashionable.
Dry Creek Valley is Zinfandel country, a narrow Sonoma valley of gravelly benchland and hillside where the grape has been grown since the nineteenth century. The Bradford Mountain estate vineyard sits high above the valley floor, and mountain-grown Zinfandel gives smaller berries, firmer structure and more mineral character than the valley below.
