We know Navarro fans love a good deal on an everyday red wine. To ensure it is also a good wine, we purchase extra fruit, mostly from our regular growers. This bottling is 49% Zinfandel from Dark Horse Vineyards, produced from their biodynamically grown grapes, as well as heritage grapes from Tollini Vineyards. Pinot Noir contributes 14%—the same fruit that we purchased for our Gold Medal-winning bottling of
Mendocino Pinot Noir. We added a new grower in 2023, Kazmet Farm in Redwood Valley, and 12% of this bottling was produced from their Syrah grapes. Al Tollini provided the Carignane—11%—from grapes grown on his family's unirrigated, octogenarian vines. Another pioneer Mendocino family, Bartolomei Brothers, provided the old-vine Grenache, which constitutes 9% of this 2023 Navarrouge cuvée. When Bob Gibson delivered his Sangiovese fruit for rosé, we arranged for an extra ton for red wine, which added 5% to this bottling.
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Punching down Zinfandel in an open-top fermenter is a twice-daily chore. We have ten open-top fermenters which are used to ferment Zinfandel, Syrah, Grenache Noir, Sangiovese and Carignane.
Olivia racking Pinot Noir into barrels in our red wine cellar. ![[below]](/images/buttons/arrow_down.gif)
All the grapes were fermented on their skins and punched down twice daily to keep the tannins supple, then pressed when the alcohol reached 12% to avoid bitter seed tannins. The resulting wines were all aged in seasoned French oak barrels for 10 months. There is a wide range of red and dark fruit flavors in the wine, as well as more earthy flavors from the old-vine Carignane and Zinfandel. The wine has a full body with a hearty 14.2% alcohol.
Silver Medal winner.
