To all Best Winers,
Monga Zin winemaker Carol Shelton summed it up best when she wrote:
”Located in the Cucamonga Valley in southern California 70 miles inland from Los Angeles, Jose Lopez Vineyard was planted in 1918 for "packing grapes" to ship to home winemakers in Chicago and the East. These old Zinfandel vines struggle in the near desert-like conditions; with rocky-sandy soil that holds very little water. After nine decades, they have only grown to about 18 inches tall, and have just a few tiny fist-sized clusters on each vine.
Many of the old vineyards in this valley have fallen victim to urban sprawl. We are fortunate that Don Galleano is passionate about keeping this old vineyard alive despite its rather poor economic returns—only a half a ton per acre instead of the expected 2-4 tons per acre of younger, irrigated vineyards. Through Don’s dedicated efforts, this vineyard passed the rigid CCOF standards in 2004, and is officially organically grown.”
‘Packing grapes’. That’s awesome. The Best packing grapes we’ve ever tasted.
We recently had the pleasure of filming/documenting this historic, forgotten strip of vineyard during its miniscule harvest. What a trip.
Freeway. Track homes. Strip mall. 95 year-old Zinfandel.
Both Tris and I grew up here in SoCal so there’s a certain element of local pride when we did our short film on this magical spot.
The vines fight the tumbleweeds and any other plant scrappy enough to survive these conditions for water. There’s no irrigation. The vines are dry-farmed in sand. It’s pretty much the desert.
The wine has surprising balance when one considers the harsh conditions. It looks like 2012 was also kind to the Cucamonga Valley as this is a turbo-charged, full-bodied energetic Zinfandel, with a fabulous raspberry, brambly quality to the rich, luscious texture of this wine. Carol uses mostly older oak, I think Zin likes it that way. New oak on Zin is like me wearing a tuxedo. It looks and feels more than a little uncomfortable.
This vineyard will be eventually grubbed up. We appreciate the fight that vineyard manager Don Galleano has put up but at some point the builders and urban sprawl will win.
That’ll be a shame.
In the meantime, take this opportunity to enjoy a true piece of California wine history…at what we think is an absurd price. In the Russian River Valley this wine would cost double. As a matter of fact, I don’t think many people are making money anywhere along the line on this one. Carol pays for the grapes and then pays a refrigerated truck to transport them to Sonoma. She then charges a very fair price and we do the same.
For everyone in SoCal, this is your home team. Represent. The better this wine sells the longer these old gnarly vines stay in the ground.
I personally think this is, to us anyway, more about subconsciously preserving this site as opposed to ‘making money’, even though this is the wine ‘business’. For some reason this feels deeper than that.
We hope you feel the same way. Grab a great bottle of wine and preserve Cucamonga’s Old-Vine heritage!
Kyle Meyer and Tristen Beamon, Proprietors, BestWinesOnline.com
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