The 21st annual Zinfandel Festival in San Francisco this week, sponsored by the Association of Zinfandel Advocates & Producers (ZAP), highlights why California’s signature grape is worth preserving.  Zinfandel is not just the charmingly fruity wine that we all love, it is a chameleon of a grape that expresses its diverse origins and reveals true complexity and signature spiciness with age.  ZAP works to preserve this diversity by sponsoring a long-term zinfandel research program – conducted by the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) – whose aim is to find …

Irreverent, irrepressible and incorrigable – that about sums up John Caldwell and Napa Valley wouldn’t be the same without him.  No other person outside of Napa City founder and Coombsville namesake Nathan Coombs is more closely associated with the Coombsville wine region than Caldwell, and it started really as opportunism to develop land as tony real estate in the emergent Napa Valley tourism destination in the late 1970′s.  He was flying high then with his successful shoe stores in the valley, he says, touring around in his Cadillac Seville ragtop …

The Coombsville AVA became official on December 14, 2011 but the region was always an integral part of high quality Napa Valley wines since the  1870′s and, more recently, has been high on the radar of insiders.  Considering its long history, volcanic effluvial soils and ideal climate, the granting of the formal AVA is a mere formality.
Coombsville’s low profile may have been a result of its location – about 1,360 farmed acres just east of the large city of Napa, obscured by a hill of residential homes which gives way …

When immigrant Jacob Schram searched the relatively virgin Napa Valley in the early 1860’s to plant vines, he searched for steep hillsides that he knew from his youth growing up near the Rhine River would yield the highest quality grapes.  He found his vineyard site in the foothills south of Calistoga.  The wines of Schramsberg would achieve such renown for their quality that author Robert Louis Stevenson was inspired to declare on the veranda of Schram’s home that “wine is bottled poetry.”  After Jacob Schram’s death in 1905, the estate …

After taking a back seat for decades to the more famous sub-appellations in the Napa Valley, Calistoga is quietly becoming the destination of choice for producers seeking terroir-driven wines in a down-to-earth environment.
Kelly Fleming could have invested anywhere in the Napa Valley for her namesake brand but chose to make Calistoga her home, seeing the potential for high quality winegrowing in Simmons Canyon off Silverado Trail.  The watershed here creates one of the few alluvial fans on the eastern side of the Napa Valley and her location, farther and deeper …

Kenzo Tsujimoto, Chairman of publicly held Capcom Co., Ltd., is the owner of Kenzo Estate, a 15,000 case production winery in the eastern mountains of Napa Valley.  His luxury cabernet sauvignon wines are made with the best talent money can buy but his goal wasn’t to create an exclusive wine that few can buy.  Like the successful video game products his company sells worldwide, his wines are approachable and accessible.
Tsujimoto wasn’t one of the those wealthy businessmen seeking to create a monument to himself in the Napa Valley.  While he …

For those of you touring Napa Valley wine country, it’s sometimes nice to spend one day in one place, without a car, but still get the complete food and wine experience.  There are others of you visiting San Francisco who only have a day or two to spend in wine country.  Downtown Napa has more than 20 tasting rooms, wine bars and wine lounges to get a taste of Napa Valley wines, at your convenience.  While the local wine tasting rooms owned by Napa Valley wine producers pour their own …

Zinfandel, like most reds, goes great with BBQ and there was plenty of that at the Good Eats & Zinfandel pairing at Fort Mason on Thursday as part of Zinfandel Advocates and Producers’ 20th anniversary celebration.  But with zinfandel’s softer tannin structure and moderate acidity, there is a broader range of dishes it can be enjoyed with, from spicy hot to vegetarian to soups, even sashimi!  Fifty zinfandel producers teamed up with Bay Area chefs to produce mouthwatering pairings that kept throngs of fans crawling the venue.  Here are some …

One doesn’t need to drive far up Spring Mountain from Main Street Saint Helena before they reach a hidden property with beautiful formal gardens, majestic redwoods and bluebirds flying above. With its palatial Victorian home, Miravalle, one can imagine that the vast 845-acre estate looks very much like it did in the 19th century. Its earliest vineyards date back to 1873, while the Beringer Brothers planted their first vines there in 1882.
In such a natural setting adjacent to protected Napa Land Trust …

In a valley dominated by cabernet sauvignon vines, Robert Biale Vineyards is committed to zinfandel.  Zinfandel has been a way of life for this Napa Valley native.  Robert Biale’s grandparents Pietro and Christina moved to California from Northern Italy in the 1920’s and acquired property in Napa in 1937.  They planted zinfandel because it was popular at the time and being practical immigrants, appreciated the grape’s generous and consistent yields of 4-5 tons/acre.  They, and their son Aldo and wife Clementina, were farmers who grew vegetables, grapes, prunes and walnuts …