100% Zinfandel

Food pairings: Chile rellenos, pasta all'arrabbiata, peppered salami or ratatouille.

Winemaking: The winemaking aims to balance the Zinfandel's natural acidity with its luscious red and darker fruit, letting the tannins give the wine a meaningful backbone without being overly aggressive. The wine was aged for eight months in large French oak foudres. Winemaker Scott Kirkpatrick calls it an absolutely classic expression of California Zinfandel, precise and generous, with moderate acid and tannin holding everything together and a finish that seems to last forever.

Vineyards and terroir: The vast majority of the fruit comes from old vines planted in the 1950s in the Calpella area, north of Ukiah in Mendocino County; carefully tended, such vines give wines of rare concentration and depth. Mendocino is the northernmost region of the North Coast AVA, which spans six counties north of San Francisco linked by fog and cool Pacific air. Hot summer days are followed by cool coastal breezes that let the vines recover each evening, preserving fruit, acidity and supple tannins, while the county's alluvial soils and gravelly loam are particularly suited to Zinfandel with vibrant acidity and bold, complex red fruit.

Family and history: Dancing Crow is a small, family-owned winery whose California winemaking roots go back four generations, to the late 1800s. Founder Tony Cartlidge, with more than 30 years of winemaking behind him, first made a single-vineyard Sauvignon Blanc from Lake County in 2006, when the area had only a handful of wineries, and in 2013 he founded Dancing Crow with his wife, Sarah Forni, and their sons Adam Forni and Stefan Cartlidge. The name comes from the day the first vines were planted in the shadow of Mount Konocti: straw marked where the vines would go, and while the family broke for lunch a murder of crows swooped in and danced around it, and then the crows and the straw were gone. The family farms sustainably certified vineyards in Lake County and, since April 2023, has welcomed visitors at its winery and tasting room near Hopland in Mendocino County. Scott Kirkpatrick, a former sommelier and cellar master at Eleven Eleven in Napa who founded the Mountain Tides label, leads the winemaking with winemaker Rogelio Alvarado.

In the pictures: Winemaker Scott Kirkpatrick in the barrel room; the Dancing Crow winery near Hopland, with its vintage Citroën van; and the large French oak foudres in the cellar (photos courtesy of Dancing Crow Vineyards).