2025 Spring Wine Club Release
Dear Club Members,
The year is rapidly progressing with fresh green leaves everywhere. The two varieties I still have in the ground have budded out and fruit buds are visible. On the rest of our acreage, we are preparing to receive the new vines I'm expecting this summer. The irrigation system, which will no longer serve the forty acres it connected to before the property sale, has to be modified somewhat. We also have a lot of work to do with the trellis system, and about an acre and a half is bare land, and that has to be staked and connected to the pump. Day by day, we are working toward getting everything ready for the arrival of the new vines.
For the April Wine Club Release, we have landed on three single varietal wines, contrasting to the three blends you received last time. They are all good examples of the quality Lodi can produce and are great examples of my own personal style of wine making. We hope you enjoy them.
2021 Syrah
I think one of the things that makes this variety special is that as it approaches maturity, the fruit starts to dehydrate a little. You can see this because ripe Syrah fruit is slightly dimpled instead of being round and plump. This effect makes for an intense wine, deep and rich in color, with big bold flavors. This particular year, the fruit came in at 27 brix, (normal brix levels are 24 to 25) which is a good indication it was very ripe. The result is this outstanding wine. It has subtle oaky aromatics, and is bursting with flavor and intensity. We aged it for 18 months in new barrels and it has had further aging in the bottle since the end of December 2023. If you have enjoyed my Syrah wines before, I'm certain you will be excited about this one. And, as a bonus, if you are inclined to lay a few bottles down to age further, this would be an excellent wine for that.
2022 Barbera
Much of Barbera's popularity around the world is because of its naturally high acidity that makes it go so well with many of the foods we enjoy- meats, salads, and pasta dishes with hearty tomato sauces just to name a few. This wine is no exception. You'll find it to be highly fragrant, with beautiful hues, lots of fruit expression and a pleasing finish.
2022 Outlier Zinfandel (3+ bottle clubs)
If you have had a chance to become familiar with my wines over the years, you will probably remember the various vintages of Bartlam Zin that we have produced. With care, through diligent farming, the vineyard never failed to produce wines with great color, good fruit and solid structure. In 2022, however, being short of Zinfandel fruit, I left too much fruit on the vines. The higher crop load prevented the fruit from maturing like I had hoped, and the fruit that did get ripe did not achieve the intensity of color that I usually acquired. Reluctantly, we went ahead and harvested anyway, even though I feared the resulting wine would be thin and weak. However, I have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised by the outcome. While it is not as intense as previous vintages from the same field, it is still a wonderful example of Zinfandel, full of flavor and that zesty Zin character. Different, in this case, is not necessarily bad. It is just unique, an outlier.
Thank you for participating in our wine club. Any feedback you might have is always appreciated.
Wine description & write-up by owner/grower/winemaker Tom Hoffman
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