87% Zinfandel, 7% Petite Sirah, 1% Syrah, 1% Carignane, 1% Mataro, 3% Mixed Reds

Food pairings: Hearty dishes such as braised short ribs, velvety pork belly or a rich gnocchi gorgonzola; also grilled steak, sausage and peppers with cheesy polenta, baked rigatoni or pappardelle Bolognese, and aged cheddar, gouda or dry jack.

Winemaking: This is Seghesio's introduction to its style of Zinfandel, built on purity and balance. The grapes were hand harvested in small lots, giving more than 150 separate small fermentations so that each vineyard block could express its own character. Depending on the lot, the team used pumpovers, délestage, punchdowns and rotary fermenters; the new wines spent 7 to 12 days on the skins before being settled and moved to barrel to finish malolactic fermentation. The wine aged for 10 months, 7% in new American oak and 93% in neutral French and American oak barrels, and was racked only twice: once after malolactic and once to blend and bottle. The 2024 season followed a second straight wet winter, with steady warmth through June, July and August and Sonoma's cool nights; harvest ran from late August to early October in one of the smoothest, most evenly paced harvests in memory.

Vineyards and terroir: The blend draws on vineyards across Sonoma County, in Sonoma Valley and the Russian River, Alexander and Dry Creek valleys: 55% from Seghesio's certified sustainable estate vineyards and 45% from growers the family has worked with for generations. Many of these are head-trained old vines that must be farmed and picked by hand; balanced vines gave intensely aromatic, concentrated fruit that reflects each corner of the county.

Family and history: In 1886 Edoardo Seghesio left his family's vineyards in Piedmont for Sonoma County and the Italian Swiss Colony, where he married his boss's niece, Angela. In 1895 they bought a home with land in Alexander Valley and planted Zinfandel at what is still the family's Home Ranch; in 1910 they planted the Chianti Station vineyard, today North America's oldest Sangiovese. Seghesio survived Prohibition by selling grapes, juice and concentrate, and after Edoardo's death Angela ran the business, shipping wine on the railroad that crossed their land and famously inviting visiting grape brokers to a home-cooked chicken dinner. The family bought the Scatena Brothers Winery in Healdsburg, still its home, and for decades supplied bulk wine, at one point making most of Sonoma County's red wine, before refocusing in 1993 on its own estate vineyards. Winemaker Andy Robinson, who learned Zinfandel under fourth-generation Ted Seghesio, has led the cellar since 2015, working with viticulture director Ned Neumiller, a fifth-generation family member.

In the pictures: Winemaker Andy Robinson (left) and viticulture director Ned Neumiller in the vineyard (photo courtesy of Seghesio Family Vineyards); the Seghesio winery in Healdsburg (photo: Chip Harlan, 2005, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons); and a Seghesio vineyard in autumn (photo courtesy of Seghesio Family Vineyards).