A blend of barrels and vineyards that we believe work in concert. All the vineyards are hillsides, dry farmed, and farmed sustainably. This wine is built to be a little more SHOWY than our single vineyards. Single vineyards have a singularity, while this reserve allows for all the horns, bells, and drums to kick in. We also allow this wine a little more freedom to express vintage character and varietal over place. The HHR is a wine you can pull open a little sooner but may have a few more gears as well as we play with more new wood and slightly riper profiles.

2018 and the hits keep coming… another promising Zinfandel vintage in Sonoma County. 2018 had a few significant vintage events: (1) A very warm February caused early bud break, (2) average rainfall, (3) the rest of the season was punctuated by hot spells, and (4) we had average temperatures during the growing season—we were not forced to pick by any extreme weather events. It was something normal; we love normal. There are innate qualities to 2018 that offer long-term promise of polish and finesse and I think 2018 is very similar to our wonderful 2014 wines that our team loves.

2018 is our largest production career to date; we have been told it was the largest harvest in the history of California. It’s not that our vineyards went crazy in yields but really homogeneous ripening, a nice extended (and calm) harvest and we were able to use ALL our fruit, and yes, it was a generous vintage. Punctuated black fruit skins, purple crayon, dark plum, cracked black pepper, gravel, stone, lovely floral and spice perfume with tender hints of vanilla. Tannins are elevated in our 2018 wines and we embrace this salvo for Zinfandel and we like it. We want our wines to age gracefully and take on a claret-like style in time.. a decade or more. Beekeeper wines express the dry-farmed hillsides we climb to farm and the Hidden Hillside is a Reserve selection, blending our most ambitious barrels together to make one of our more daring and bold Zinfandel statements, which features approximately 30% newer high-tier French Oak. The elevated acidity from higher-elevation hillside fruit ensures that this wine will age gracefully for a decade or more. As usual, the virtue of patience is rewarded with properly aged Beekeeper wines. We also recommend drinking our wines just north of cellar temperature, cooler than most, at around 60 degrees.