This Mendocino beauty comes from an old vine organically farmed vineyard. It's 90% Zinfandel with 10% Petit Sirah. The black and blue fruit aromas have hints of clove, honeyed lavender and orange zest. It's a medium-bodied wine with juicy flavors of huckleberry, over ripe plum, black currant, creamy vanilla and burnt orange.
Blackberry, baked plum, clove, cinnamon, honeyed lavender and burnt orange.
The Horse & Plow Winery merges the best of old and new world techniques to produce authentic, handcrafted wines from Northern California. They utilize organic farming, small lot fermentations and traditional techniques to make balanced, food friendly and site specific wines. The goal is to make world class wines from organically grown grapes. Owner Chris Condos has been making wine since 1995 and has worked with many, unique varietals. His wines are aromatic and complex. He sourced grapes for this wine from Testa Vineyards which has some of the oldest organic vines in the North Coast. The vineyard was planted in 1912, by Gaetano and Maria Testa using Belgian draft horses and today is farmed by their great grandchildren, Maria and Rusty. The Testa family takes great pride in maintaining the vineyards, where they employ labor intensive, hands on, old world, traditional and organic farming techniques.
With its plentiful fruit and refreshing acidity, this wine is a crowd pleaser. Beef, lamb and pork are great proteins for this wine. It will be fantastic with salty meats, such as a platter of artisanal salumi, as well as with grilled sausages or a steak sprinkled with kosher salt and then grilled. We suggest complementing the wine's spice notes with seasonings like black pepper, clove, allspice or cumin. This seamless, easy-drinking red is a nice accompaniment to roast chicken, a grilled pork chop or even a good sandwich. It will be a fine choice for one of my signature dishes: Forever Roasted Pork.
With a remarkable 25% of its total vineyards recognized as Certified Organic, Mendocino County holds the distinction of being the nation's pacesetter for "green wine" production.
