“Pezzi King was influential in creating the modern style of Zinfandel.” – Wine Spectator, 2012

…aaand the last Pezzi King we featured was back in 2014.

There’s a good reason for that. Each year since, their popularity (for good reasons we’ll get to) doubled while their production pretty much stayed the same. Cause Old Vine Zin is all about the low, low yields that continue to get lower.

And they could not keep their growing mailing list AND the trade happy. There went our shots at bringing our Operatives more Pezzi King. Until now.

Pezzi King comes to us from the insanely reliable Wilson Artisan Wineries group. Their small portfolio of boutique wineries has been hugely popular year after year since their humble beginnings in the early 1990s. With wines scoring big with Wine Spectator and an impeccable track record of literally hundreds of Gold Medals from competitions, they are unrivaled, just like their other acclaimed sister properties: Mazzocco, Matrix, Pezzi King, and Wilson Winery to name a few.

In fact, they have been so popular that the mainstream press can’t seem to catch up with reviewing these anymore before they sell out. The one accolade worth noting is the Double Gold medal with 96 points it earned from the North Coast Wine Challenge by The Press Democrat this year, up there with other noteworthy Zins from Carol Shelton, Deerfield Ranch, and Rockpile’s Florence Vineyard.

And this knocks it out of the park as expected. A blockbuster, boldly structured but impeccably balanced and complex, with over-the-top aromas of Rainier cherries and blackberry, it’s ripe, boisterous, and vivid with huckleberry jam, freshly cracked Tellicherry peppercorns, and toasty espresso-tinged oak. If there is a finish (still lingering after a minute!) it’s majestic like those crescendo moments of a Zinphony (see what we did there?) that builds up to a climax. If Zin was Viagra… just sayin’!

At the end of the day, if anyone knows Dry Creek Zinfandel, it is Ken and Diane Wilson. They have been in the Zinfandel game for longer than most producers knew they should be and have been killing it! Countless awards and metals and acclaim over the years and these two… when they took over Pezzi King, they kept the awesome vineyard contracts, the name with an excellent reputation, and, of course, their excellent winemaker Chris Barrett who has a few dozen top scores under his name too.

Take it from Decanter asking the question “California’s best Zinfandels?” They conclude are from “Sonoma’s Dry Creek Valley” and Pezzi King is the poster child of that.

Piled up on all we could, will it be enough?