We sent this out as an email and then mentioned it again in our Sunday ‘week that was’ piece.\u00a0 But we think this deal is so extraordinary, we want to make sure that everyone gets a look at it as, at the time of this writing, our source still has some wine:<\/p>\n
“The odyssey continues, but the story lines are as interesting now as they were back some three decades ago when we started with Ravenswood, though for entirely different reasons.\u00a0 Back in the 90s, Ravenswoods single vineyard wines were iconic.\u00a0 We used to have \u2018Ravenswood Day\u2019 where we would offer up our allocations of these well reviewed , exceptional Zinfandels for distribution.\u00a0 At the time we, a single store, were one of Ravenswood’s larger customers in California.\u00a0 We sold everything from those compelling single vineyard bottlings to their \u2018lowly\u2019 but exceptionally performing \u2018Vintners\u2019 value series.<\/p>\n
Then, one day, it all changed.\u00a0 OK, maybe not all <\/em>of it.\u00a0 The key issue was that one of the first significant winery acquisitions of the modern era in California took place.\u00a0 Winemaker\/mind behind Joel Peterson and his partner Reed Foster sold Ravenswood to Constellation in 2001 for $148,000,000.\u00a0 That\u2019s a lot of zeros.\u00a0 Can\u2019t blame them for taking the money, but the rub was Joel had to stay and help keep an eye on things.\u00a0 Small price to pay for that kind of coin and Joel, always the businessman, saw the wisdom in the move.<\/p>\n Once one of the most recognized brands in California, Joel had to know that the only way for the new owners to recoup that kind of investment was to ramp up production.\u00a0 Once Ravenswood \u2018went corporate\u2019 most of the winery\u2019s long term loyal supporters figured production of the personality filled, well-priced Vintners wines, as well as their other regional varietal bottlings, would predictably add a zero to their production level and churn out tens of thousands of cases of soulless corporate juice.\u00a0\u00a0 Predictably, that happened.<\/p>\n The same folks also dismissed Joel\u2019s treasured line of single-vineyard Zinfandels as going \u2018corporate\u2019 as well.\u00a0 What now?\u00a0 \u00a0Would there be some\u00a0 50,000 cases of \u2018Big River\u2019 or 200,000 cases of \u2018Old Hill\u2019.\u00a0 No. With these small, \u2018heritage\u2019 sites covered with low yielding old vines, there was no way to boost production.\u00a0 The current iteration of Ravenswood does indeed put out a million boxes of Vintners Blend wines now.\u00a0 But the historic single vineyard program has remained essentially the same as it was \u2018back in the day\u2019.\u00a0 We talked with both Joel and his long-time winemaker Peter Mathis, who made Ravenswood wines for 20 years, and both of them had no clue why Ravenswood\u2019s Historic Single-vineyard program was no longer revered.<\/p>\n Our best guess is \u2018guilt by association\u2019.\u00a0 Certainly, there was an emphasis by the corporate bean counters to deliver big numbers. There were \u2018stockholders\u2019 and all sorts of new criteria by which Ravenswood would be judged.\u00a0 As to the single-vineyard jewels upon which Ravenswood built their reputation in the first place, there was little reason to spend corporate marketing dollars to promote them.\u00a0 In fact, we\u2019d guess that the accounting dept. gets downright annoyed to have to keep track of such tiny numbers.\u00a0 Eventually the media pretty much stopped talking about them.<\/p>\n Anyway the results of this story led us to a remarkable cache of Ravenswood\u2019s treasured single vineyard Zins at fantastic prices in May of last year.\u00a0 Don\u2019t ask us about the machinations that brought this about, we couldn\u2019t tell you. But we sent that offer to an enthusiastic audience.\u00a0 We were pretty sure we were \u2018killin\u2019 it\u2019 at $24.99 on Old Hill, Big River, Dickerson and Barricia, about the price we sold these special Zins for decades earlier in the mid-90s.<\/p>\n But even more inexplicable is the offer we are rolling out today on that 2013 Ravenswood Barricia Zinfandel<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 What happened?\u00a0 Beats us.\u00a0 Everything with this program is the same or better.\u00a0 Even though Joel\u2019s bank account is larger, he still has \u2018the fire\u2019 concerning these vineyards.\u00a0 The vineyards themselves are still the same, too…. old and super low-yielding. This is still some of the most treasured dirt in California.\u00a0 Are they made the same way? Pretty much.\u00a0 Joel himself says so, except now they can buy better equipment with a corporate bankroll.<\/p>\n So how did an outstanding example of true California Zinfandel, from a revered vineyard, made under the auspices of one of the true Zinfandel masters, end up at this kind of price?\u00a0 Again, we have no clue, but we don\u2019t care.\u00a0 We simply grabbed every box we could of this once-in-a-lifetime offer.\u00a0 This Zin\u00a0 is sourced half from Zinfandel planted prior to 1892 and the balance from new plantings of Zin and Petite Sirah, which makes up around 20% of the blend.\u00a0 That Petite gives the wine heft and another level of complexity.<\/p>\n The nose shows brambly blackberry and black raspberry augmented by brambly notes.\u00a0 Big in the mouth with notes of pepper and spice, this one shows expansive volume yet both the tannins and acidity are nicely integrated.\u00a0 The wine hasn\u2019t skipped a beat over the years.\u00a0 The only thing missing is the \u2018aura\u2019 of times past.\u00a0 At roughly 1\/3 the typical price, we can deal with that.\u00a0 If you love Zinfandel, here\u2019s a legendary Zin for a remarkable fare… ”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n .<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We sent this out as an email and then mentioned it again in our Sunday ‘week that was’ piece.\u00a0 But we think this deal is so extraordinary, we want to make sure that everyone gets a look at it as, at the time of this writing, our source still has some wine: “The odyssey continues, … Continue reading “ONE LAST WORD ON THE RAVENSWOOD ZINFANDEL BARRICIA FOR $14.98 THING”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[261,501,499,500],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3130"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3132,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3130\/revisions\/3132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}