90% Zinfandel, 10% Syrah, Petite Sirah, Grenache, Mourvèdre and Cabernet Sauvignon

Food pairings: Smoky baby back ribs, pulled pork sliders, smash burgers with bacon jam, sausage and peppers, pepperoni pizza, and other dishes from the backyard grill.

Winemaking: The grapes are hand-harvested, hand-sorted and gently destemmed. In the cellar they went through a cold soak with the berries still intact, to bring out the juicy fruit, before the primary fermentation. Once the wine was fully dry it was racked to barrel for malolactic fermentation and aged for twelve months in French oak, a diverse mix of barrels from first use to neutral and from barriques to larger puncheons. The result is lush and expressive, a Zinfandel that is approachable right out of the gate, delicious and table-ready.

Vineyards and terroir: Since the first vintage, Valravn Zinfandel has been built on old, bush-pruned vines averaging 40 years of age, some more than 100 years old, from the best appellations of Sonoma County. The 2023 comes mostly from Dry Creek Valley, with smaller parcels from the Russian River Valley, Rockpile and Alexander Valley, plus a little fruit from the Yorkville Highlands just over the line in Mendocino County. The small share of Syrah, Petite Sirah, Grenache, Mourvèdre and Cabernet Sauvignon adds depth and complexity.

Winery history: Valravn, named for the raven of Danish folklore, grew out of more than ten years of making wine in Sonoma County, through a network of vineyard owners, growers and winemakers built up along the way. It began in 2014 with Zinfandel from a friend's property whose grapes were not going into their own wine: the old, gnarly, bush-pruned vines the team had long admired from the road, secured with a handshake. Founder Baron Ziegler, a Minnesota native who bought Bordeaux futures at 15 and spent a decade with the importer Eric Solomon, moved to California in 2007 and went on to found Banshee Wines, Valkyrie Selections and Valravn. Winemaker Rob Fischer, a Napa native who studied enology at Fresno State and made wine at Etude, Lyric and Beaulieu Vineyard, joined in 2017. Today Valravn seeks out "a parcel here and a row there" to craft Sonoma County wines of single-vineyard quality at friendly prices.

In the pictures: Founder Baron Ziegler and winemaker Rob Fischer checking the vines (photo courtesy of Valravn); and ripe Zinfandel grapes on the vine in Dry Creek Valley (photo: Frank Schulenburg, 2019, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons).