Rosenblum Cellars Rockpile Zinfandel 2004 Rockpile Road Vineyard
The first wine that really caught my attention and got me excited was Zinfandel, and specifically the 1994 Zinfandel from Nalle Winery. At the time I didn’t know anything about wine, and had not really tasted very many wines. And so Zinfandel quickly caught entranced me with its combination of spicy, peppery red fruit and soft tannins that make for such a wonderfully accessible and exciting red wine.
Since then, I’ve pursued Zinfandel in its many incarnations from California, but always end up coming back to Dry Creek Valley and a handful of producers including Nalle (my perennial favorite), Ridge, and Rosenblum. These days, I drink Zinfandel much less often than in the past, but I never fail to be bowled over by a really great bottle.
The catch with Zinfandel is that it is a grape that, depending on growing conditions, can very easily produce a big, hulking, overbearing red wine. This is why the Zinfandels from Dry Creek Valley have always been my favorite. For the most part, the growing conditions in this AVA produce Zinfandels that take advantage of the grape’s dark, red fruit flavor profile without indulging in its high-alcohol, huge body tendencies. There are definitely exceptions to this rule, but the wines from the above producers that really capture my attention are the ones that generally have more finesse and subtlety than the Zinfandel fruit bombs that are all too common.
And so a few years back I bought a couple bottles of the 2004 Rosenblum Rockpile Zinfandel, and stashed them away to wait for a good time to open them. The wine had gotten rave reviews all around, and the uniqueness of the AVA and its growing conditions really caught my interest.
The Rockpile AVA was approved in 2002, making it one of the newer AVAs in California. Of the AVA’s 15,400 acres, 150 are planted to a variety of red grapes, including Zinfandel, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petite Sirah. The vineyards lie between 800 and 1900 feet above sea level, and most importantly, many of them are above the fog line. The result is that the temperatures, and daily temperature swings, are more moderate than at lower elevations, and the grapes are exposed to constant sun during critical growing periods, ensuring full (very full!) maturity. Rockpile used to be part of the Dry Creek Valley AVA, but in response to the consistently unique quality of the wines produced from fruit grown there, it was determined that it warranted its own AVA status.
That unique quality basically boils down to wines that have serious depth and heft, and loads of dark, jammy black and red fruits. Think blackberries and black cherries on steroids. These are wines that satisfy the way a really great holiday dinner is satisfying. After drinking them you feel full with the wine’s richness, and satisfied in an almost gluttonous way. You wouldn’t want to eat a meal like that every day, but when you do you really treasure and savor the experience.
This is the 2004 release of this wine, and so it has been residing in our cellar for nearly three years now. It weighs in at a massive 16.3% alcohol! I haven’t been able to dig up any information about the percentage of zinfandel in the wine (although it has to be at least 75%), or the number of new oak barrels used. The label indicates that it came from the Rockpile Road vineyard, within the Rockpile AVA. (In a 2004 article, the Wine News indicated that of the 9 vineyards in Rockpile, the majority incorporate the word “Rockpile” into their name in some fashion.)
The wine pours a deep, inky purple, with a viscous surface texture. The nose is rich with vanilla, blueberries and blackberries, and a trace of smoke. The palate is velvety and mouth-coating, with very soft, warm tannins. Lots of dark, red fruits just saturating the palate, accompanied by a hint of black pepper and a trace of vanilla. The same flavors continue through on the finish. The vanilla flavors from new oak are very well integrated with the wine’s fruit flavors, and were not obtrusive at all. On the contrary, they offered a nice counterpoint to the spectrum of dark fruits, highlighting the fruit flavors more so than they would be without that counterpoint.
A wholly enjoyable wine that went superbly with the barbecue dinner that we ate with it. This may not be my favorite style of zinfandel wine, but it really hit the spot on this occasion. What is more, it made me look forward to going back to a bottle of Nalle’s Zin and revisit the more balanced style of Zinfandel that I enjoy so much.
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