Turley Evangelho Vineyard Zinfandel 2022

Despite the overwhelming number of Zinfandel producers in the U.S., the MVP of carrying the varietal’s reputation may very well belong to Larry Turley,who has spent the last thirty years in California dedicating his days to preserving and furthering Zinfandel’s cause. So much so that since the co-founder of Frog’s Leap Winery first left to start his own winery in 1993, he has built a portfolio that includes 47 wines across 50 vineyards with 29 of them dedicated to the Zin varietal!

Today, his protege, winemaker Tegan Passalacqua, (a noted Zinfandel and Petite Sirah specialist in his own regard), is the man tasked with overseeing the entire winemaking operation. On top of that, Tegan and his wife started their own brand, Sandlands concentrating on making lesser championed wines. Sound like a lot? You don’t even know. Wine Spectator pointed out that in the 2017 vintage alone, Tegan made 49 different wines from 13 different counties in California under the Turley label, and another dozen wines for Sandlands.

The Evangelho bottling from Turley is an extraordinary wine, not just for its flavor, but because it is a living piece of California history. It showcases a completely different philosophy than the mountain wines, emphasizing heritage and a rare, sandy terroir.

The vines were planted in the 1890s—over 130 years ago. These are own-rooted (not grafted) and head-trained vines, grown without the support of trellising wires, a method that defines their quality.The vineyard sits on Dehli Blow Sand soil, which is literally deep, loose beach sand. This porous soil creates two major advantages: it forces the dry-farmed vines to dig incredibly deep for water, concentrating their fruit, and it famously prevented the spread of phylloxera (the vine louse) a century ago, which is why the vines are still on their original rootstocks.