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Inky and brambly, with black raspberry, bright cherry and raspberry jam, brooding plum and blackberry, licorice, clove, chocolate and new leather. Full-bodied and luscious, with chalk dust, smoked pepper, firm grip and terrific length.
Available in store
Close100% Zinfandel
Food pairings: Baby back ribs with a smoky barbecue sauce, Santa Maria-style grilled tri-tip, grilled hanger steak, wood-fired sausages and peppers, duck breast with a cherry reduction, and aged Cheddar or Gouda.
Scores:
Winemaking: Turley's ingredient list is simple: grapes. The head-trained, dry-farmed vines are picked by hand, and the wine is made with a minimalist approach built on native yeast fermentations and a restrained hand in the cellar, so that the vineyard speaks first. The 2023 aged for 15 months in barrel, 80% French and 20% American oak, with 20% new, and was bottled unfined and unfiltered. It's a classic Paso Robles Zinfandel, with forward, luscious fruit and the brightness, chalky and floral notes that set Pesenti apart.
Vineyards and terroir: Pesenti Vineyard sits on the west side of Paso Robles, in the Willow Creek District, on steep hillsides of ancient marine calcareous soils, white and rich in minerals. The Zinfandel was planted in the early 1920s, and the old vines are still head-trained and dry-farmed, sending their roots deep in search of water. Turley owns the vineyard, and it is certified organic. The vines matter, but the soil plays the most important role here, giving Pesenti's wines a brightness and chalky, floral aromas that are unique to the site.
Family and history: Frank Pesenti came to San Luis Obispo County from the village of Brembilla in northern Italy in 1914, worked as a charcoal maker, and bought a ranch near Templeton, where he and his wife Caterina planted Zinfandel on the steep hills. After Prohibition he made his own bricks and built the Pesenti Winery, the first in the county to be bonded, in 1934; his son Victor and son-in-law Aldo Nerelli later made the wines, famous locally for generous jugs of Zinfandel. In 2000 the family sold the winery and vineyard to Turley Wine Cellars, founded in Napa Valley in 1993 by Larry Turley, a former emergency room physician who had co-founded Frog's Leap with John Williams. Turley is devoted to preserving California's historic old-vine vineyards, many planted in the late 1800s, and has made wine from more than 50 sites across the state. Tegan Passalacqua, Turley's winemaker since 2013, makes the wines, and the tasting room is at the old Pesenti winery in Templeton.
In the pictures: The entrance to the Turley tasting room in Templeton, Paso Robles; sunrise over Turley's Pesenti vineyards in autumn; and old head-trained Zinfandel vines at Pesenti in January (photos courtesy of Turley Wine Cellars).
