Zinfandel, 2016. Chacewater

Chacewater Winery & Olive Mill is family owned and operated. They are located in Lake County, bordering Napa and Mendocino. Chacewater is named after a small village near Cornwall, on the southern tip of England, where their ancestors worked as exceptional miners. This hardworking nature has a lot to do with their success today.

Owner Paul Manuel began working in the family construction business outside of Nevada City. A destructive fire cleared the land in 1988, providing an unexpected opportunity to try growing grapes. Owners Paul and Kellye started with a 10 acre vineyard and quickly became known for their high quality organically grown fruit, later expanding to 36 acres and selling their fruit to big wineries such as Fetzer. It wasn't until 2008 that they built their own winery and released their first professional wines in 2011.

They now farm 36 acres of wine grapes and 30 acres of olive trees, producing about 11,000 cases of wine and 2,000 cases of olive oil since their opening. They also have vineyards in the Sierra Foothills, from which our selection hails. The Sierra Foothills were the first grape growing area in California to receive notoriety and it was all based on one grape, Zinfandel. Back in the 1960s it had some of the oldest grapes in the state and most of them were Zinfandel.

Our selection is worthy of the fame, with large chunks of strawberry jam, black cherry, and white pepper fill the glass and offer a perfect foil to lamb shanks cooked in rosemary and Zinfandel.

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