2018 Bedrock Wine Company Zinfandel Esola Vineyard Amador County 750 ml

Bedrock is internationally recognized for almost single-handedly ushering in the new generation of “cool” in California wine, and we’re used to seeing its iconic label crowning the top shelves of the hottest wine bars in San Francisco, New York, and London. But this complex, aromatic 2018 Esola Vineyard old-vine Zinfandel wouldn’t be found atop anything but a wait list. 

One of Bedrock’s most limited single-vineyard wines, this is a rare bottle only known to the eagle-eyed fans ready to pounce immediately upon its release. And pounce we did.

With a Zinfandel as powerful and richly fruited as it is agile and well-balanced, it’s almost poetic that Bedrock was founded by Morgan Twain-Peterson, son of Joel Peterson, the legendary founder of Ravenswood Estate. At just 39 years of age, Morgan has amassed legions of admirers, and achieved what most winemakers aspire to in a lifetime:

He’s a Master of Wine—a rare feat for a winemaker to achieve—and his extraordinary palate instincts no doubt had a hand in helping him earn two 100-point scores from Robert M. Parker Jr. himself, who lauded Morgan’s “Midas touch,” and praised the way he “has built his Bedrock Wine Co. into a world-class performer.” His wines have been featured four times on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 List, one landing in the top ten. Few in the industry were surprised when Morgan was named the San Francisco Chronicle’s 2014 Winemaker of the Year.

We knew to secure our allocation even before Antonio Galloni called his Vinous tasting of Bedrock’s 2018 wines “mind-blowingly profound,” calling out the Zinfandels as the real stars of the “monumental” lineup. We quickly identified this 94-point beauty as one of the most gorgeous, multilayered Zinfandels of the entire vintage and are thrilled to bring it to Wine Access members at the lowest price in the country.

A brilliant ruby red with a chalky minerality that is rare to find in Zinfandel, this 2018 is as “superb” as Galloni summarized in his glowing review. Concentrated yet elegant, its bright aromas of blueberry, raspberry, violet, and pie spice are matched only by the fresh burst of berry notes on the palate.

The unmistakable old-vine character comes through in spades on the midpalate, with layered plum, chervil, and floral notes all threaded with a thrilling mineral component that creates a real tension alongside the fresh acidity and ample, well-developed tannins.

Morgan founded Bedrock Wine Co. in 2007 so he could specialize in intense wines made from California’s oldest, most historic vines, in order to capture and express the Golden State’s wine heritage in every bottle. Esola Vineyard is his only Amador County source, but he’s in good company—this iconic site provided the grapes that went into Ridge’s famed Shenandoah bottling in the 1970’s and ‘80s. Owned by Denise Esola, a rather flamboyant former dancer, it seems fitting that her vineyard’s wine is graceful, lithe, and full of explosive kinetic energy.

Esola Vineyard’s head-trained, dry-farmed vines are grown in sandy soils over granite, producing what Morgan told us might be the smallest Zinfandel berries and clusters he has seen. The resulting wines are fragrant and structured—among his favorite reds he makes every year. It’s not hard to see why.

Impossible to resist in the short term, this 2018 Bedrock Zinfandel is built for up to a decade or more in the cellar. At $39 on this 94-point Esola Vineyard, we can’t think of a more accessible point of entry to one of the top producers in California—perhaps the world.