1995 Scherrer Winery Zinfandel Old and Mature Vines Scherrer Vineyard Alexander Valley- USA, California, Sonoma County, Alexander Valley (7/26/2013)
This lady is at the top of the hill, just about ready to take that first step down, but still teetering. A Zinfandel that is bricking, with aromas of sweet red fruit and age. The palate has plenty of that fruit, a little black pepper, a lot of earthiness, and plenty of acidity. The midpalate is somewhat shallow, but the finish is haunting, and one has to admire the skillful winemaking of Fred Scherrer. When I saw Fred a couple of weeks ago, and told him I had this wine, he said drink it now. It was good advice.
Wow! By ‘first step down’, would you say that it is the fruit that is starting to fade, or get ‘cooked’ in quality, or what? Sounds pretty great from the description!
Still plenty of fruit, but not at the level of his younger Zins - not cooked at all. The nose kept getting more lovely and more aromatic. She hasn’t taken that step yet!
I had my last bottle a year or so ago. I thought it had started the downward slide but it was very good. The 1996 was even better but unfortunately I’m out of those too.
Craig - I’m curious if you acquired this bottle recently? I purchased it from Fred last Fall and have kept it very cold since receiving it. I don’t hold much hope for the small amount remaining in the bottle.
I had the remaining glass the next night, and it reaffirmed my initial impression. It was still fresh showing fruit and that earthy core I find in all OMV. According to the back label, the wine could easily be held for 5-10 years, and here it was alive and well beyond that.
I just ordered my first case from them of OMV futures (the 2012, to be delivered next year). It will take a long time to get a cellaring program in place to watch these age, but you’ve got to start somewhere, and the next library sale might help me out a bit.
It is nice, and probably also frankly a marker of it being a winery around which there isn’t a collector frenzy (i.e. if they could sell through all or almost all of their wine up front at full price, they’d probably do it – I imagine Screaming Eagle and SQN don’t have library sales).
Arcadian is another excellent and ageworthy winery with great stores of back vintages for sale, and sometimes discounted in sale events.
I can’t think of many others, at least not many others which don’t mark the library wines up too much to be attractive to me to buy. I guess there is Kalin, but the only thing they release are “library” wines.
Arcadian is a winery that I’ve wanted to explore more, but haven’t gotten to yet. Looking at the website, they have plenty of older offerings up for sale. Maybe this is my excuse to branch out farther across California, just when I vowed to start learning more about Burgundy…