PSA-Zepaltas Wines Release Mon 2/21

WINE TALK
1

I’ve been looking forward to this since our visit in Octobery. Ryan’s 09 Hanzell Chard was one of the best wines of our trip and the top new find. The 09 pinots were also very good and perhaps the best Pinot’s he’s made yet. The newsletter comes out Monday. Passed on some other chards to go long on this one.

I pulled this off FB. [cheers.gif]


Here is the lineup:
09 Hanzell Chardonnay
09 Babushka Chardonnay
09 W.E.Bottoms Pinot Noir
09 Suacci Vineyard Pinot Noir
09 Sonoma Coast Pinot noir

2

Shhhhh. I was going to wait to post this after I got my order in.

I agree with you about the Hanzell Chard. When our group tasted it in November, we were all amazed that a wine that Ryan was essentially blending on the fly using a thief and a beaker from the barrels had that much depth. I tend to prefer Chards that are un-oaked or use minimal oak but this was a real eye opener for me.

As good as the Chard is, all six of us in our tasting group would say that the Suacci Pinot was the best wine. That might be the best pinot I have tasted. It has the characteristic Sonoma Coast earthiness and funk with great fruit that had a finish that lasted forever. I will buy my limit here.

Monte

3

Monte- agree with you on the Suacci. That is typically my favorite pinot and the 09 is tops.

It looks like Ryan is hitting the road to support the release. Last year during our visit he told us how big a market North Dakota had become and how he spent some time there supporting his brand. We took one of his pinot’s to dinner that same night at Bottega. There was a large party next to us. One of the gentleman leaned over to our table and asked if we were drinking Zepaltas. It turned out he was with a group of ITB folks from Fargo and owner of a restaurant with the largest cellar in ND. He raved about how good the wine was and how popular it is in ND. It was a bit of a surreal experience…

4

Site is up and running. New online ordering is working well.

98 cases made on the Hanzell Chard. Took all I was allocated and asked for a few more. 20% case discount makes them qpr of the year so far.

5

Bought all that my budget would allow.


Monte

6

Easy purchase, especially with 20% case discount! I’ve recently revisited 2005/2006 pinots and syrahs and they are superb! Looking forward to the new chards!

7

So far I have ordered 6 of the Suacci Pinot and 6 of the Hanzel Chardonnay and wishlisted 4 more. I’m actually thinking about ordering 6 each of the SC Pinot and the Babushka Chard. The 20% case discount makes these extremely reasonable.

8

Took all I could afford, as well. Would love another case or two. I’ll dig through the couch to see if it’s possible.

9

The barrel samples on the Suacci and the Hanzell were the highlights of our trip this fall. On Monday when the website was still being debugged, I got logged on and it said that the Hanzell was sold out and my allocation of the Suacci was 1 bottle. I emailed Ryan that I finally figured a way around the shipping issue (it would only allow pick up or shipping to 55 degrees) and mentioned that I ordered my allocated bottle of the Suacci. He emailed back:

Thanks for your order. We had the allocations setup wrong. You can get any
wine that you would like. We are not going to limit you to just one bottle
of Suacci! I can go in and fix your order for you on the back end and get
you taken care of. Let me know what you would like. Sorry to mess with you.

Ryan may be dealing with the growing pains of e-commerce but he gets the customer service aspect of the business. I’m looking forward to seeing him do a wine dinner in April here in Houston.

Monte

10

wish I had a few 2005’s left. The 2007’s are so young. I’m really trying to keep my hands off of them. They open up nicely with about 2 hrs of air. I have high hopes for the 09’s based on our tasting in October.

Nice to see some Zepaltas fans on WB. I think these wines will hit the sweet spot for a lot of the folks here…

Todd- if your watching you need to try the Chards…

11

Fred, I still have 4 of the '05 Suacci’s remaining (out of the 20 I bought). My wife and I totally fell in love with this wine and have enjoyed it at every stage…

If you’re ever in the unfortunate position of being in Ohio, hit me up. We’d love to open one with you.

-Nathan

12

popped an 08 La Cruz last night and it was delicious. Its been a long while since a pinot was drained so quickly at casa Webber.

13

Hi John,
I’m glad you liked it. The 08 La Cruz was definitely the sleeper of my 08 svds. I am really digging how it has evolved in to this earthy, dark fruited wine. It really does well with 30 minutes of air. It’s funny because in my original tasting notesI wrote that it was our most elegant, refined pinot out of all our 08s, but now it has become dark and rustic.

Ryan

14

OK, I have zero bottles of this wine left in the zwines cellar. I am coming to Ohio to drink this with you, and possibly steal a few bottles when your not looking.

15

Heh, I just looked and I still have an '05 trifecta: 2 each of the SC, WE Bottoms and Suacci. Stop by here, it’s closer.

Time to drink some Zepaltas, I think.

16

Hey, save some for me [cheers.gif]



Ryan- what happened to the RRV chard sampke we tasted back in October ? Did it go into the Babuska chard ?

17

Alright, Ryan. We’ll save some for you. You’ll be out here next year for our Z Wines pig roast, right? [wink.gif] We’ll do a vertical of the entire Z Wines Suacci history and get into that W.E. Bottoms mag…

18

Ryan’s 09s are awesome – and of uniformly high quality. I think it’s a step up overall for the lineup. His touch with Chardonnay is phenomenal. Opened a bottle of the 08 RRV Chard the other night, and it was positively smoking good. A no-brainer and a cool guy … even for a Packers fan [wink.gif]

19

It will be out in April/May release along with the Rose’, SB and the Nunes PN

20

Had my first of these last night. It was really good and quite elegant with about 30- 60 minutes of air. It got lusher and bigger over the course of a few hours. I liked it best within the first hour and will be pairing this with some food next time.

I think I’ll work through the rest of my 08’s and leave the 07’s for now.