2017 Armida Winery Zinfandel

2017 Armida Winery Zinfandel

2017 Armida Winery Zinfandel Refined yet briary, with raspberry and blueberry flavors laced with toasted sage and white pepper notes, building tension toward wiry tannins. Hints of cedar and cinnamon tease and meld effortlessly with the vibrant fruit flavors surround this 2017. The wine begins with a lush soft entry bringing fresh tart cherries and raspberry jam into focus, then follows with boisterous red current. The seductive finish isn’t cloying and sweet, but rather refined, lush and succulent, and the integrated tannins and great balance of savory and spice will continue to gain in complexity over the next fifteen years.

Armida

For over 25 years, brothers Steve and Bruce Cousins have crafted terroir-driven single-vineyard wines from some of Sonoma’s most iconic vineyards including Maple Vineyard, Gap’s Crown, Durell, Parmelee-Hill, and Castelli-Knight. Recently they’ve added Chalone Vineyards Chardonnay and Point Noir from this storied vineyard, the only one in the Chalone AVA at the base of an extinct volcano bordering the Pinnacles National Park. Armida also produces a number of unique offering including Domus Alba (their Sauvignon-Semillion homage to white Bordeaux), Tina’s Block Zinfandel (from an ancient block in Maple Vineyard planted in 1910) and POIZIN, “The Wine to Die For.”

Working with Winemaker Brandon Lapides, Steve and Bruce strive to produce wines that express their provenance, the unique combination of flavors and texture from each different vineyard. The wine making approach is minimalist as the grapes are simply guided in a natural process (picking, fermentation, racking), remarkably unchanged in thousands of years, and resulting in intense, flavorful and complex wines.