Rockpile Vineyards that is! Within the last few years, Mauritson Winery began bottling a “second” label called Rockpile. The wines are all vineyard designates from the various vineyards in the Rockpile American Viticultural Area (AVA) in Sonoma. Mauritson makes at least 5 vineyard designate Zinfandels, a Syrah, a Petite Sirah, a blend….and maybe others that I’m not currently aware of. I’ve been letting some of these wines live in my cellar for some time now, and finally decided to pop the cork on my second bottle of the 2005 Rockpile Mauritson Rockpile Ridge Vineyards Zinfandel. You can read my first review here. It’s been a year and a half, so I thought I’d check in to see what was happening. The wine cost me $35 minus a club shipment discount, had a real cork closure, and clocked in at a hefty 15.6% alcohol by volume.
This wine is ready to go. Seriously, drink up. It’s wonderfully smooth, well integrated, and despite the high alcohol, doesn’t show a trace of heat. On the nose I found blackberry, chocolate, black cherries, spice, pepper, and more black fruit. This had a delightful nose. We drank this with my dad last week, and we all loved it. In the mouth I got chocolate, blackberry, black cherry, black fruit, black currants, spice, and anise. My kind of Zinfandel, I had to fight both my dad and Matt to get my share of the bottle!
Posted in California, Mauritson, Red, Wine, Zinfandel
