2007 Renaissance Zinfandel

SERVE WITH ... This is the quintessential wine to accompany red meat or a spicy casserole, or just a delicious drink on its own. It should be served at a moderate room temperature.

CELLAR ... The best storage temperature for wine is between 16 and 18 degrees Celsius. This wine will benefit from a few extra months in bottle after release, will develop some lovely leathery characters with age, but ideally should be consumed within 3 to 5 years from release.

PRONUNCIATION ... Zinfandel [zin-fahn-DELL]

Tasting notes
While not very common in Australia, Zinfandel is an extremely popular red grape variety in California, where it is often made in a ‘blush’ or Rosé style and produces some of the most delicious and berry rich red wines. In Italy it is known as Primitivo.

As a late ripening variety with tight bunches, uneven ripening patterns and thin skins, if not grown in a suitably warm and dry climate, Zinfandel will fail to reach its optimum level of ripeness, can easily develop Botrytis infections. Rutherglen climate and conditions, our well drained soils and the exposure of our site make our vineyard a perfect location to produce world-class, full-bodied red Zinfandel.

This wine is addictive! Ripe berry and brambly fruit, licorice, coffee and chocolate aromas carry through to a rich and flavoursome wine. The wine is mouthfilling, has soft tannins and a bright acid finish. This is the second vintage of Zinfandel we have produced, and we are excited about the potential of this variety as a premium regional specialty.

Winemaking
We handpick our Zinfandel, selecting only the best and ripest bunches, with a small amount of shrivel, ensuring we make a wine with the full spectrum of berry and bramble flavours, ripe tannins, but without the excessively high alcohol levels that the variety tends to produce.

The fruit is crushed and chilled to approximately 5ºC and allowed to soak in small open fermenters for 48 hours before yeast inoculation – capturing the soft, bright berry characters typical of Zinfandel. This technique is an important ‘house’ feature of most of our red wines.

The fruit is then inoculated with a spicy yeast and fermented for approximately five days being pressed directly to oak barrel to complete both alcoholic and malolactic fermentations. The wine was then matured in these barrels for 12 months. We used a combination of new and one year old hogsheads and puncheons, and use only Amercian oak for Zinfandel, as we find the broader grain oak and coconut hints complements both the structure and flavour of the variety.

During final blending, we have added a small portion of the Rutherglen iconic variety, Durif, to complement the fruit characteristics of the wine and enhance its tannin structure.

Wine detail & analysis
Variety Zinfandel (Primitivo)
Region Rutherglen, North East Victoria
Harvest date mid March 2007
Release date January 2009
Alcohol 14%
Oak treatment American Coopers Canton, Demptos, AP John and Kelvin
Total acid 6.4g/L
pH 3.60

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James Halliday, Australian Wine Companion 2010
RENAISSANCE ZINFANDEL 2007
'A nicely balanced combination of bright red fruits and a touch of blackberry; there is a little varietal sweetness to the fruit, and an elegant aspect that delivers a complex example while maintaining balance. Rating 90'

Gourmet Traveller Wine, April/May 2009
100 TOP NEW RELEASES
91 points, 4 stars ' This is a big, rustic red with a sweetly ripe blueberry, blackberry, chocolatey and almost jammy aroma. It's fairly high in alcohol, without a lot of elegance, but loads of flavour and robust, grippy tannins. A crowd-pleaser.'

Tim White, Australian Financial Review, 23-25 January 2009
NEEDS MILES: IN A SILENT WAY 94/100
'Classic zin smells in this: moss, brambly briar, red currant and floral peachy things. Smells rich yet sapid. Lots in the mouth to get on with. Pretty long, too, and just a tweak of cuddly alcohol warmth.'

Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front, 25 October 2008
'This is a blend of 90 percent zinfandel with 10 percent durif. Bright, pure, gutsy and smooth – with a deliciously spicy edge. Easy slings of musk and plum-shot ironstone. Quite yum. Great drinking – if you like your reds big and ripe. 90 points'

SILVER Victorian Wine Show 2009
SILVER Federation Square Wine Awards 2009

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