100% Zinfandel

Food pairings: Barbecue, burgers, smoked meats, beef and hearty tomato-based dishes.

Winemaking: The head-trained vines are hand harvested, and the wine is fermented with native yeasts only. It is aged for 15 months in barrel, 80% French and 20% American oak, of which 20% is new, and bottled unfined and unfiltered. Serve at 55 to 60°F.

Vineyards and terroir: After working with the fruit for more than a decade, Turley released its first single-vineyard bottling from the Del Barba Vineyard with the 2021 vintage. The vineyard lies in Contra Costa County, in the delta where the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers meet, at about 30 feet of elevation. Its certified organic, head-trained vines were planted in the 1980s in deep Delhi blow sand, made up of decomposed granite washed down from the Sierra Nevada, which gives the wine its perfumed fruit, silken texture, ultra-fine tannins and dark, saline fruit.

Winery history: Turley Wine Cellars was born in the Napa Valley in 1993, the vision of former emergency room physician Larry Turley, who had earlier co-founded Frog's Leap with John Williams in 1981. Turley set out to preserve the living history of California's vineyards, many of them planted in the late 1800s, and over the years has made wine from more than 50 old-vine sites across the state, most of them single-vineyard Zinfandels and Petite Syrahs. In 2000 Turley bought the historic Pesenti Winery in Templeton, Paso Robles. The winery champions organic and dry farming, native yeast fermentations and a restrained hand in the cellar, so that each vineyard remains the primary voice in the bottle.

In the pictures: Freshly harvested grapes in the Turley barrel room; old vines at sunrise; and a picker with a cluster at harvest (photos courtesy of Turley Wine Cellars).