Wine & Spirits - Summer 2022 - 30

LEFT: DARRELL CORTI'S
EARLY INTEREST IN
AmADOR ZIN, AND ONE
WINE IN PARTICuLAR,
IS PIVOTAL IN THE
REGION'S WINE HISTORY.
RIGHT: A PAGE FROm
CHARLES mYERS'S 1965
LOG OF HIS HOmE WINE
EFFORTS, INCLuDING
THE '65 ZINFANDEL
FROm DEAVER RANCH.
Sierra red
Amador's Zin Inheritance
By PATRICK J. COMISKEY
F
ive minutes into my conversation with tegan Passalacqua,
grower-winemaker at Turley Cellars, he's talking with authority
about a past he didn't inhabit, from decades before he was born.
" This is where Charlie Myers got his zinfandel in 1965, " he tells me,
" the wine that Darrell brought to Trinchero and saved the region. "
We're at Deaver Ranch in the heart of Amador County in late March,
days before budbreak will commence for zinfandel across the Foothills.
Deaver Ranch is one of several ancient vineyards coming out of dormancy
along Shenandoah Road, where stout, head-trained vines dot
the hills like cloves on a Virginia ham.
By Darrell, Passalacqua means Darrell Corti, the grocer, epicure,
polymath and proprietor of Corti Brothers in Sacramento. In five days'
time, Passalacqua will be the youngest guest at Darrell Corti's 160th
birthday party in Los Angeles (celebrating a shared birthdate with fellow
octogenarian Steve Wallace, the legendary founder of Wally's Wine
Shop in Westwood). But for the moment, Passalacqua is standing in
the midst of some of the oldest vines in the state.
The wines from Deaver Ranch have touched more people in more
vintages than almost any other wine in California, transcending generations
of winemakers and wine-drinkers. As a region, Amador has
been around long enough to be discovered, rediscovered, exposed and
exploited, its fruit celebrated and manipulated, made into something
it's not, and often underappreciated for what it is. In addition, the
vines here are ungrafted and unirrigated, making them vulnerable to
the one-two punch of phylloxera and drought.
They also happen to produce clarets of unparalleled structure and
character. " These might be the most serious zinfandels in California, "
30
WINE & SPIR IT S
Summ ER 202 2
says Passalacqua, who's been at Turley since 2003. " They're lighter,
have more structure, and they hold their acid. They have more in common
with Barolo, or Valtellina. "
amador is one of eight counties in the western foothills of the
Sierra Nevada that double as wine regions, those regions arranged like
thick fingers fanning westward toward the San Francisco Bay and outlined
by the Foothills' many watersheds. Amador's borders are the
Cosumnes River and the North Fork of the Mokelumne River, while
its western edge is formed by what's known as the Ridge, a not-quite
overlook from which the plains of Lodi and the Central Valley can be
glimpsed through the trees, bottoming out the horizon. On clear days,
Mt. Diablo is spectral in the distance.
According to Passalacqua, Amador zinfandel's inherent structure
begins with the Foothills' growing season. The vines are always slow
to rouse. Budbreak is quite late relative to the rest of the state: frigid
temperatures can linger with the Sierra snowmelt, leaving cold soils
and cold roots. The growing season is typically short and intense, the
days hotter and drier than in coastal vineyards, with more radial heat.
At elevations of 1,500 to 3,000 feet, the region is largely devoid of fog,
but there is a dramatic diurnal shift most evenings, slowing ripeness
and preserving acidity. By the time the zinfandel fruit reaches harvest
numbers, its payloads of acid and tannin are higher and less resolved
than coastal fruit. The result is firmer, coarser tannins, more brusque
in youth; " That's why they're so ageworthy, " says Passalacqua.
Passalacqua makes a half-dozen zins for Turley from Amador: singlevineyard
wines from Deaver Ranch and Rinaldi, and old-vine blends
PHOTOGRAPHS BY RICK MINDERMANN
Wine & Spirits - Summer 2022

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