2020 Bedrock Wine Company, Zinfandel, Teldeschi Ranch, Dry Creek Valley AVA, Sonoma County.
Normally part of Bedrock’s Heritage line the old vine Teldeschi Ranch Zinfandel in 2020 is a gem of a Zin with incredible purity and zesty red raspberries at its core with a dark garnet color, less opaque without the addition of Petite Sarah, and a nicely ripe medium bodied palate. Sometimes less is more and in this case that proves to be true with an array of classic Zin fruits, the mentioned raspberry, red currant, plum and huckleberry, along with briar, brambles, sage, anise, subtle cedary wood, and coffee bean notes. Morgan Twain-Peterson MW says that this is a first, labeling it as a plain Jane Zinfandel, having worked with (the) Teldeschi Ranch since the first vintage of Bedrock back in 2007, but as he notes, it has always gone under the name Lorenzo’s Heritage Wine, named for Lorenzo Teldeschi who planted many of the original vines on the ranch. Twain-Peterson explains that In 2020, the later-picked Carignan and Petite Sirah that normally go into Lorenzo’s Heritage were unusable due to smoke exposure, so he decided to take the opportunity to showcase the exuberant heart of that wine, the Zinfandel, as the main focus. Though predominately Zinfandel, he says there is uniquely a splash of interplanted Trousseau Noir (or Bastardo, as John Teldeschi relishes saying) and a little Carignan. As per normal, the Zin sees pretty much all de-stemming and is fermented with native yeasts and then aged about a year in primarily used French oak barrels, for elegance and transparency, as seen here, with this finely structured, age worthy and pleasing Zin.
The Teldeschi Ranch at more than a hundred and twenty years old now is one of Dry Creek’s most iconic names and places, right up there with Lytton Springs in the area’s most recognized and most treasured spot for Zinfandel. John Teldeschi now farms this old and historic vineyard, first planted in the 1890s, and spread across three ranches on the east bench of Dry Creek Valley, which winemaker Morgan Twain-Peterson notes, is on a bench of red, cobbly, porous soil, with lovely old dry-farmed vines. Of all the great old vine vineyards that his father and he have had the opportunity to work with, this is the longest standing and one of the deepest relationships they have formed, which is saying something about how much they relish getting the grapes here, year after year. Twain-Peterson’s famous and or legendary father Joel Peterson, after working with Teldeschi fruit with Joe Swan, of Joseph Swan Winery, back in the 70s, began working with the fruit for his Ravenswood wines in 1984, and those wines, were some of the first single vineyard Zinfandel field blends I had ever drank. Joel has worked with the fruit from Teldeschi every year for over three decades and when Morgan went on to start his Bedrock label it was only natural that he have Teldeschi as one of the foundational wines for the label. This part of Teldeschi in fact was the first block Morgan’s dad, again Joel Peterson, worked with from the ranch back in 1982, and this 2020 pays a nice tribute that long collaboration and is a singular tasty treat not to be missed! While you’ll need to be careful when buying 2020 red wines, you can be sure in confidence, Bedrock didn’t bring in smoke tainted grapes and the quality is there, and this one is proof.
($49 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive