2022 Brown Estate, Zinfandel, Mickey’s Block, Napa Valley.
On my visit to Brown Downtown and the fabulous Brown Estate tasting room in Napa Valley I got to try a few of the more limited offerings, including the Howell Mountain Zinfandel, which I already reported on last month and this ultra small batch estate grown Mickey’s Block Zinfandel, that also very much impressed with an extra degree of density and richness on the full bodied palate. This wine is lovely in the glass with a deep dark garnet/purple hue and bright ruby edges of youth, it gains depth and expanded layers in the mouth with loads of black raspberry, plum, Mission fig, Bing cherry and red currant fruits, along with velvety tannins, iron/mineral, bramble spice, sticky lavender, vanilla and smoky cedar. This wine is rounder and more plush, given the vintage, than the 2021 Howell Mountain, but still put on a top performance, not unlike same year’s offering from Turley, Biale, Bedrock and other prime producers of Zins. Everything is poised here and not pruned or raisined, though certainly riper in style at 15.2% natural alcohol, but not over the top sweet, this is a fine effort. The MIckey’s Block was traditionally fermented and de-stemmed with this vintage seeing 9 months in exclusively French barrels with 40% new oak employed, which has integrated nicely already. This one is a tougher get, but I also suggest the regular estate Zin, which I picked up from the cooler 2023 vintage and look forward to opening soon.
I learned that Brown’s Mickey’s Block vineyard is located on the far west side of their property, in Napa’s Pope Valley, beside a seasonal stream at an elevation of close to1100 ft. The soils here are reddish volcanic, rocky, and mineral rich, with what Dave Brown says are the ideal quantities of sand and clay, adding to the complexity and depth found in the wine. This tiny six-acre vineyard has long been coveted for its unusually small clusters and berry size, which provide maximum intensity due to the high ratio of skins to volume, which explains the intensity and structure behind the opulence of the fruit, even in a warm vintage. The Mickey’s Block is our only Zinfandel vineyard with a north-south orientation, this helps make for more balanced wines, allowing for the Zinfandel’s natural acidity to shine through. Shaded in the morning, this block gets the afternoon and evening sun, giving plenty of time for the vines to develop deep flavors, and is subject to a big diurnal shift in temperature during the ripening season that allows Brown to achieve maximal extraction and intensity, while preserving purity and fresh detail. Brown has been a str since bursting on the scene in the late 1990s and has long been a favorite of mine, the people here and the wines are awesome and it is a usual stop on my rotation when visiting Napa, I highly recommend a stop here if you get to wine country.
($70 Est.) 93 Points, grapelive