Wine & Spirits - Summer 2022 - 32

named for historical figures like Judge Bell and " Buck "
Cobb. These are hardly shy wines (nor are they as big as
Turley's reputation suggests), but their broad shoulders
and ample fruit nestle into Amador's tannic structures
with relative ease. They're not as rich or extracted as Turley's
coastal bottlings, but no less powerful.
T
He best amador zin producers lean into tHe
structure. Passalacqua is one; Bill Easton is another.
Easton draws from old-vine sources for his eponymous
zinfandel label, which complements his Rhôneinspired
line, Terre Rouge. But zinfandel is what his parents
drank, and what he drank when he was young; " My
parents made weekend trips to the Foothills from Sacramento
to buy half-gallon jugs from the old Italian mom
-and- pop producers, " he says. When Easton ran his North
Berkeley retail shop, Solano Cellars, in the 1980s, he sold
jugs of Amador red to the value-conscious and the thirsty,
and he continued to sell them even after he started his
own winery.
" These were wines of character and wines of the region, "
he says. " They expressed our terroir, the black-cherry flavors
with that Amador granitic minerality, and a little
cedary tobacco component to it. They were made in old
open-top redwood fermenters, aged in 20,000-gallon redwood
tanks. Very old-school California. " In many ways
the zinfandels of Amador County are at their best when
they're still expressing some version of that tradition. This
isn't fruit that likes to be pushed. " They were rustic in their
way, " says Easton; " it's just what Amador brings. "
Easton's wines, drawn from sites like Rinaldi, D'Agostini
and Esola, all over a century old, reflect this kind of structural
integrity, defiantly red-fruited and spicy, structured
like clarets, the tannins girded with minerals. Easton
32
WINE & SPIR IT S
Summ ER 202 2
BILL EASTON, STANDING
AmONG ZINFANDEL
VINES AT RICE mACDONALD
VINEYARD
thinks the ferrous tannins are a function of soils, mostly
from the Sierra series, sandy clay-loam, granitic in origin,
and moderately dense. Despite their significant waterholding
capacity, high yields are all but impossible. " These
are poor mountain soils, with a lot of iron and magnesium, "
says Easton. " Everything comes in under three tons,
even the zinfandel, " adding, " You can't cheat; if you set a
bigger crop, the fruit will never get ripe. "
Head east of tHe sHenandoaH Valley, and tHe eleVations
rise; the soils are less granitic and more volcanic, with
bands of quartz and shale. That's where you find Shake
Ridge Ranch, a few miles from Sutter Creek, the heart of
Gold Country, where Ann Kraemer has planted 46 acres
on a dramatically hilly property, with vines emerging
between stands of pine, oak and madrone. As we toured
the property in her Kubota RTV, mostly in low gear, the
winds picked up from the east. " As soon as the Central
Valley cools, " Kraemer says, " air from the Sierra rushes in
and the vineyard cools down fast. "
Kraemer's planting is one of the most meticulous in the
region, oriented just off-axis from direct summer sunlight,
pushing the orientation northwest to southeast. This orientation
falls upon the unruly jumble of slopes and swales,
resulting in minute variations of ripeness, exposure and
shading for the nine-odd acres of zinfandel she has planted
at Shake Ridge. Her zinfandel is planted in some of the
coolest parts of the property, extending flavor development
and leaning into the region's rustic tannins. " Tegan's
right, it's all about tannins, " she says. " They're big, but
they're wound tight. "
Half of Kraemer's zin vines are head-trained, with the
others on trellis, but she modifies the spur position off the
cordon to push the foliage away from the centerline of the
PHOTOGRAPH BY GUILLERMO EASTON
Wine & Spirits - Summer 2022

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