Wine & Spirits - Winter 2019 - 39

Top 100 Wineries

Ravenswood

Reynvaan

CALIFORNIA | SONOMA
Ravenswood's team crafts classic old-vine field blends as
traditional California reds.

WASHINGTON | WALLA WALLA VALLEY
Matt Reynvaan's family's brand continues to produce some of the
most expressive syrahs in Walla Walla.

JOEL PETERSON WAS A LONG-HAIRED medical
researcher when, in the mid-1970s, his interest in
wine led him to apprentice with Joe Swan, who
taught him the winemaking he has practiced
throughout his career: harvesting based on tasting the grapes, fermentations without added
yeasts and aging in French oak. In 1976, Peterson founded Ravenswood with Reed Foster, a
Harvard MBA, and sought out growers with parcels of ancient mixed blacks, most of them zin.
His Vintners Blend range of affordably priced
varietal wines supercharged the brand's growth
in the 1980s, attracting the interest of Constellation Brands, which bought Ravenswood in
2001. Peterson stayed with the company, and
continued to oversee the winemaking, including his collection of single-vineyard zinfandels.
Those wines have remained stellar through all
these shifts, often surprisingly nimble and bright
when you consider that Peterson's early slogan
was "No wimpy wines." Eventually he began
training a successor, Gary Sitton, who served
as director of winemaking from 2015 until the
brand's recent sale to Gallo. It was Sitton who
made the exceptional 2016 Teldeschi Zin that
earned Ravenswood its 11th Top 100 award in a
row. -J.G.

GARY
SITTON

MATT REYNVAAN WAS A GOLF PRO in Scottsdale
when he took a job at a country club in Walla
Walla in 2004, just as the region's Rhône-variety
wines were getting international recognition. His
athletic prowess opened doors; he had the good
fortune to befriend a number of winemakers,
including Mike Sharon of L'Ecole No 41 and
Christophe Baron of Cayuse Vineyards. Both
took him under wing, and Baron served as consultant as the family purchased land. Reynvaan's
association with Baron, the vintner who built the
syrah reputation of the Rocks of Milton Freewater, ensured an association with that subregion
for the brand, but Reynvaan also invested at In
the Hills, a cool, remote site sitting on a bench at
an elevation of 1,600 feet in the foothills of the
Blue Mountains. Planted in 2008, this vineyard
is the source for wines that are just as arresting
in terroir expression as those from the Rocks:
Two of the brand's top four wines were from that
vineyard, including the spectacular Foothills
Reserve. -P.J.C.

MATT
REYNVAAN

2016 Dry Creek Valley Teldeschi Vineyard Zinfandel ($40, 95 points) Ravenswood started working
with Frank Teldeschi's old vines in 1982, and began
labeling the wine as a single vineyard in 1997. Today,
Frank's son John farms the vines, the oldest dating
back to 1913, the plants mostly zin, along with some
petite sirah and carignan. Gary Sitton turned those
grapes into a 2016 with generosity and savor, two
opposing characteristics that create energy in the
wine. You can breathe in the black-raspberry fruit and
breathe out the spicy old-vine tannins.

FOUNDED :

1976

OWNER:

Constellation
Brands
WINEMAKER:

Gary Sitton
ACRES OWNED:

CASES PRODUCED:

250,000
ESTATE GROWN:

N/A

2016 Alexander Valley Big River Zinfandel ($40,
90 points) Big River is surrounded by the Russian
River on three sides, tucked into a meander east
of Healdsburg called Digger Bend. Zinfandel has
grown there for more than a century, those ancient
vines providing a rich and generous red. This 2016 is
rooted in earthy extract, with sweet, plummy flavors
that feel soft and youthful.
2016 Napa Valley Dickerson Zinfandel ($40, 90
points) From a block of zin on the Napa Valley floor-
a rarity today-Dickerson includes vines planted in
1930, '79 and '85. Gary Sitton turned their fruit into
a rooty, rhubarb-and-olive-scented 2016. It tastes like
an old-school red from Napa Valley, relatively light in
color, tight-fisted in its long, black mineral-inflected
tannins, meaty and tense.

2015 Walla Walla Valley Foothills Reserve Foothills In The Sun Vineyard Syrah ($75, 94 points)
In any given vintage, Reynvaan will have more than
a dozen syrah lots from the 10 acres of syrah he
planted in 2008; this reserve is a barrel selection of
those lots. Its breezy, lively energy is its hallmark, the
savory tapenade scents and the dark blueberry and
carob fruit conveyed with lifted precision.

FOUNDED:

2005

OWNERS:

Mike and Gale
Reynvaan
WINEMAKER/
VITICULTURIST:

Matt Reynvaan
ACRES OWNED: 40
CASES PRODUCED:

3,500
ESTATE GROWN:

100%

2015 Walla Walla Valley The Contender In The
Rocks Vineyard Syrah ($85, 93 points) Reynvaan's strongest In the Rocks wine in 2015, this
broodingly dark syrah was goosed with a touch of
marsanne, which gives contour and lift to its spicy,
silky black-plum flavors. With its bottom-heavy Rocks
texture and tongue-staining tannins, it's a dense,
enveloping red for braised beef.
2015 Walla Walla Valley In The Hills Foothills
In The Sun Vineyard Syrah ($75, 92 points) This
blend from Reynvaan's hillside vineyard contains a
modest 5 percent of viognier. That may have helped
fix the inky black color, as well as add the appealing
lift behind its scents of bitter chocolate and olive and
the walls of its tannins. Restrained in its youth, this
needs time in a decanter and lamb with rosemary to
bring out its detail.
WINE & SPIRITS

BUYING GUIDE 2020

Wine & Spirits - Winter 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - Winter 2019