Optima Winery has been a good friend to The Wine Spies all these years, but we don’t see many of their wines. Why not? Because they are in such high demand by the winery’s own wine club members who always get first dibs on Optima’s wines. Today, Optima cut us a break and gave us a small allocation soon after the release of the wine. Thank you, Optima! Start clicking, dear Operative!

After another 3 year stretch, we finally managed to convince Optima Winery - an Operative favorite since 2009 - to give us another of their flagship Zin, their Optima Winery 2013 Dry Creek Valley Sonoma County Zinfandel. This just-released wine shows off everything we love about Optima’s wines. Grab some, before we run out.

Perfumed and fragrant, with aromas of wild cherry, blackberry, raspberry, cocoa powder, coffee bean, spice box and black pepper. On the palate, dense and rich, with black cherry juice, young blackberry, cassis, tobacco leaf, bramble, spice box, baker’s chocolate and black pepper.

The Dry Creek Valley AVA (American Viticultural Area) in northeastern Sonoma County (north of Healdsburg) is somewhat warmer and wetter than the Russian River Valley AVA region just to the south and the Alexander Valley AVA just to the east. This warmer, wetter climate provides great versatility with regard to the types of grapes that can be effectively cultivated in the region.