Rombauer El Dorado Twin Rivers Zinfandel 2019
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This wine is ruby red with a bright hue, with aromas of bright blackberry, black cherry, and briar notes. The aromas are echoed on the palate along with expansive and dense flavors of baking spices, vanilla, and dried florals. The ripe tannins frame the palate and provide a balanced texture to give the wine structure and roundness.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Ultrasmooth in texture and impressively ripe in flavor, this very full-bodied wine from the Sierra Foothills is a new addition to Rombauer's Zinfandel line. It offers tempting, almost-sweet, blackberry and dried plum flavors shaded by light woodsmoke, chocolate and black pepper.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Slightly deeper and richer, with more darker red plum, almost blue fruits, the 2019 Zinfandel Twin Rivers (92% Zinfandel and 8% Petite Sirah) has impressive tobacco, peppery herbs, iron, and baking chocolate nuances in a medium to full-bodied, concentrated, balanced 2019 offering plenty of mid-palate depth, ripe tannins, and the class to evolve for over a decade.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The Rombauer Vineyards Twin Rivers Zinfandel has been solid and consistent through the years. The 2019 vintage shows up as expected. TASTING NOTES: This full bodied wine packs an elevated palate. Enjoy its aromas and flavors of blackberries with grilled baby back ribs and a brown sugar-accented sauce. (Tasted: September 7, 2021, San Francisco, CA)
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Unapologetically bold, spice-driven and jammy, Zinfandel has secured its title as the darling of California vintners by adapting well to the state's diverse microclimates and landscapes. Born in Croatia, it later made its way to southern Italy where it was named Primitivo. Fortunately, the imperial nursery of Vienna catalogued specimens of the vine, and it later made its way to New England in 1829. Parading the true American spirit, Zinfandel found a new home in California during the Gold Rush of 1849. Somm Secret—California's ancient vines of Zinfandel are those that survived the neglect of Prohibition; today these vines produce the most concentrated, ethereal and complex examples.
As home to California’s highest altitude vineyards, El Dorado is also one of its oldest wine growing regions. When gold miners settled here in the late 1800s, many also planted vineyards and made wine to quench its local demand.
By 1870, El Dorado County, as part of the greater Sierra Foothills growing area, was among the largest wine producers in the state, behind only Los Angeles and Sonoma counties. The local wine industry enjoyed great success until just after the turn of the century when fortune-seekers moved elsewhere and its population diminished. With Prohibition, winemaking and grape growing was totally abandoned. But some of these vines still exist today and are the treasure chest of the Sierra Foothills as we know them.
El Dorado has a diverse terrain with elevations ranging from 1,200 to 3,500 feet, creating countless mesoclimates for its vineyards. This diversity allows success with a wide range of grapes including whites like Gewurztraminer and Sauvignon Blanc, as well as for reds, Grenache, Syrah, Tempranillo, Barbera and especially, Zinfandel.
Soils tend to be fine-grained volcanic rock, shale and decomposed granite. Summer days are hot but nights are cool and the area typically gets ample precipitation in the form or rain or snow in the winter.