2022 Overshine Zinfandel Gold Mine Ranch Dry Creek Valley 750 ml

There's a block of Zinfandel vines on a rocky knoll top in the western hills of Dry Creek Valley that was planted in 1914. The man who planted it—Charlie Derrick—put the vines in the ground with his brother, then left to serve with the U.S. Cavalry in World War I. He came home, spent the rest of his life on this land, plowed with mules, made wine through Prohibition, and at some point dug two holes near the vines looking for gold. He didn't find any. The vineyard has carried the name ever since.

That story is 111 years old. The vines are still there.

Gold Mine Ranch is three acres of dry-farmed, organically managed Zinfandel worked more or less the same way since Derrick first turned the soil. Old vines on lean ground produce small crops—roughly a ton to the acre—and small crops concentrate flavor in ways that no amount of winemaking can replicate. The rocky knoll-top setting, high above the valley floor and bordered by old-growth Redwood Forest, gives the fruit an intensity the benchland vineyards down below rarely match.

Overshine Wine Co. is a Healdsburg venture founded by David Drummond and Sam Bilbro, who serves as managing partner and winemaker. Bilbro is a fourth-generation Sonoma County winemaker with deep roots in this valley. For a winemaker who built his reputation on letting vineyards speak for themselves, Gold Mine Ranch is the ideal raw material. The fruit, the site, and the farming do the work.

The 2022 growing season was intense in the way that the best Dry Creek vintages tend to be: compressed, concentrated, and defined by a September heatwave that accelerated ripening and drove an early harvest. Cluster and berry sizes were down—which for old vines already producing a ton to the acre meant something very small and dense ended up in the fermentation tank. Aromatics and flavors came through with unusual clarity.

Aged in French oak, 20% new, and bottled unfiltered, this is a Gold Mine Ranch Zinfandel with all the markers that have made this site worth writing about for over a century: ripe black cherry, violets, fresh tobacco, and black pepper, with a juicy, layered mid-palate and enough textured tannin to age comfortably. Charlie Derrick didn't find gold in those hills. He already had it.