For the past 30 years, Cakebread Cellars has had an on-again, off-again love affair with zinfandel. In 1976, we produced our first zin from an old-vine vineyard on Howell Mountain in eastern Napa Valley. It was a big, robust red that entranced the winery’s early customers and became a favorite of winery co-founder Dolores Cakebread. However, the winery suspended zinfandel production in the early 1980s (much to Dolores’ dismay), resuming briefly in the early 1990s before stopping again after the 1994 vintage. Twelve years later, zinfandel has returned to Cakebread Cellars (much to Dolores’ pleasure).
In the winter of 2000, a long time friend of Dennis Cakebread’s, our SVP of Sales & Marketing, mentioned his family had purchased 2,000 acres of land in the Red Hills appellation of Lake County, an hour’s drive northeast of St. Helena and close to Clear Lake. Dennis introduced them to Dr. Phil Freese, who is Cakebread Cellars’ vineyard consultant extraordinaire. As Phil started working with the site, he realized it might contain the Zinfandel site we had long been searching for. At Phil’s urging, we took a closer look. Lake Country is an historic North Coast grape growing region that is attracting increasing attention for its quality grapes and wines.
Red Hills, located in the Mayacamas Mountain Range, is the region’s most impressive appellation, one ideally suited to the cultivation of red wine grapes. The vines at what became Snows Lake Vineyard, the source of our new zinfandel, are planted at the foot of Mt. Konocti in magnificent red, rocky soils at elevations between 2,100 and 2,300 feet. They enjoy a perfect growing season climate of warm, sunny days similar in heat summation to Oakville in Napa Valley, but with evenings dramatically cooled by mountain breezes. This major diurnal shift in temperature—sometimes as much as 50 degrees—ensures that the grapes grown in Red Hills’ well-drained volcanic soils ripen with intense flavors early in the season while retaining healthy levels of acidity.
Because Phil and Bruce Cakebread, our president and COO, visited the Snows Lake site before it was fully planted, we were able to select the most desirable west and south-facing slopes for zinfandel and to research the best clones to plant on those slopes. After Bruce and Cakebread Cellars winemaker, Julianne Laks, tasted as many high-end zinfandels as they could find throughout California (a tough job, but someone had to do it), three clones were selected to plant at Snow’s Lake—heritage clones from Amador and Mendocino counties and a Primitivo clone. (Heritage clones are selections of a grape variety that have been propagated from vineyard to vineyard over a long period of time because they possess desirable characteristics such as small berries and concentrated flavors; Primitivo is an Italian variety that DNA fingerprinting has revealed to be identical to zinfandel.)
These clones were planted on 101-14 rootstock, which produces a smaller zinfandel vine, one that buds and ripens earlier in the season. Since the vines were planted in spring 2000 (the first small crop was from the 2003 vintage), they have been trained with a vertical trellis to ensure maximum sun and air exposure and thinned to one cluster per shoot to keep crop levels to three tons per acre. Green berries, common in zinfandel, a variety which ripens unevenly, are pulled off so that the remaining fruit ripens as uniformly as possible.
We are excited about Reds Hills and its potential to yield superlative zinfandels. “It’s a great red wine appellation,” Bruce says. “The sites are unique due to their elevation and steep slopes, and the views are stunning. When you combine the ideal exposures, radiant sunlight, cool evenings and incredible red, rocky soils, you’ve got something really special. We think Red Hills will become the next ‘hot’ zinfandel appellation, so it’s good for us to be a pioneer. It’s going to be a fun journey.” Cakebread Cellars 2004 Red Hills Zinfandel certainly validates the excitement. Aged 16 months in French oak barrels, it exudes lush black plum, blackberry, boysenberry and fig aromas framed by scents of dark chocolate and coffee.
Julianne adds: “The wine’s rich, dark fruit flavors have a seductive, chocolatey tone, with a pronounced spiciness that appears in the long, savory finish. Firm tannins lend structure to the lavish fruit, so the wine should age beautifully in the bottle for another 5–7 years, although it’s delicious now with barbecued ribs, grilled steaks, spicy sausages and hearty red sauce pastas.”
Needless to say, Dolores Cakebread is smiling.
