Tasting Notes: The 2013 Old Hill Zinfandel is refined and reserved yet assertive. It displays aromas of red fruit, dried flowers, anise and bramble spice. It has firm but very fine tannins, leading to a long enjoyable finish and also contributing to the terrific aging potential of this wine. 75% Zinfandel, 25% Mixed Blacks.

Vineyard Notes: Old Hill Vineyard is located in the heart of the Sonoma Valley with probably the oldest vines in Sonoma County. There are at least 30 different grape varieties on the property but it’s blended to be around 75% Zinfandel. Otto Teller was larger than life. He had worked out a special recipe for life and stuck to it. He couldn’t stand excesses or the distractions of modern life; he knew what was good, elegant, and classic, and he eschewed anything that didn’t meet his standards. Teller’s pride and joy was Oak Hill Farm in Sonoma Valley, where he raised flowers, produce, and decorative shrubs—and which he expanded in 1981 to include Old Hill ranch, whose century-old grapevines mingled with junk cars, abandoned appliances, blackberries, and poison oak. Ignoring consultants who advised him to fumigate and replant, Otto brought the vineyard back from the dead. He cleared the brush, cultivated a natural cover of grass, and stimulated growth with foliar kelp, relying on ladybugs and praying mantises to control pests. Planted in the traditional field blend of early California grape growing, these were some of the oldest vines in the Valley of the Moon. When Otto died in 1998 at the age of 90, his stepson Will Bucklin left his winemaking job to take over Old Hill. A vineyard that is not only a historic embodiment of California wine, but an ongoing incarnation of Otto Teller: big, rich, complex, generous, and uncompromising.