We take our zinfandel very seriously, and we think it worth noting for you diehard Brown zin fans out there that 2011 marks the first time in our fifteen-year history that five BE zins from the same vintage will be released in one calendar year. This historic Brown Zinapalooza is made possible by the arrival of our 2009 Mickey’s Block and 2009 Rosemary’s Block zins, both brand new this year to the Brown zin lineup.

With the addition of these two new single vineyard bottlings, winegrower Dave Brown has completed a nifty deconstruction of our original hallmark Napa Valley zin, which is blended from our Mickey’s, Rosemary’s, Chiles Valley, and Westside vineyard blocks. The latter two names will strike a chord with the Brown zin faithful among you; they are the first and second single vineyard zins, respectively, that Brown Estate has bottled over the years – the Chiles commencing in 2002, the Westside in 2006.



It’s a fascinating exercise not only for the nose and palate, but for the imagination, to taste through five Brown zins from a single vintage. While the Napa zin blend embodies components from all four vineyards, the individual bottlings from our Mickey’s, Rosemary’s, Chiles Valley, and Westside blocks, in concert with the Napa zin, give proof to the oft-abused notion of terroir. As strikingly different as each of these zins is – from the fullness of the Napa to the jamminess of the Mickey’s to the elegance of the Rosemary’s to the brooding fruit of the Chiles to the mellow structure of the Westside – there is an unmistakable imprint, primarily in the noses, signaling that these five very distinct zins can only have come from one place. Intriguing evidence of what we call the Brown Estate pedigree is present in each of these gorgeous and complex wines, even as each is a singular expression of our estate property.

Production on our single vineyard zins is just a few hundred cases each. We hope you will stock your cellar with these wines so you can indulge in a series of in-the-round Brown zin tastings from the 2009 vintage. By partaking of this unique opportunity you will experience both the extraordinary versatility and the unparalleled virtue of our estate grown zinfandels.

The Napa, Mickey’s, and Rosemary’s are available currently online (the Napa also is in distribution), and we will release the 2009 Chiles Valley in May, and the 2009 Westside in the fall. Collect all five and join us on our zintastic voyage!

Update 04/26/11: Our 2009 Chiles Valley zin is now available online. To commemorate our first ever five-zin vintage, beginning May 28th we will be hosting a series of 2009 "Zinapalooza" horizontal tastings at the winery – a rare opportunity to experience all five 2009 Brown zins with winegrower Dave Brown and wine educator Coral Brown as your guides. See page 8 of the Summer 2011 BE Paper or click here to request tickets.

Hard to believe it's been that long since our last post - yet not so when we consider all that's happened since. If you've been following our recent adventures on Facebook and/or Twitter, you may recall that during the lead-up to ZAP in December and January, the San Francisco Chronicle gave us three very nice mentions. First, they ranked our 2008 Napa Valley Zinfandel among their Top 100 Wines of 2010. Next, they gave our then newly released 2009 Napa zin a terrific leg up with "Napa Valley Zinfandel: The Chronicle recommends." Then came a second nod to our 09 Napa zin in "From the Notebook" at the tail end of Jon Bonné's insightful article entitled "It's time to heal the great Zinfandel divide."



By the time we attended our 12th annual ZAP Grand Tasting on Saturday January 29th, we were pretty well blown away by the Chronicle's rapid-fire love, having grown accustomed to flying below the radar. We found it interesting that our colleagues in the wine industry seemed to take more notice of our recent press than did consumers themselves, and that was fine by us. The winemaking arm of our little family enterprise - namely our winegrower and brother, David - tends to be on the quiet side (in a "speak softly and produce a stunningly pure and well-balanced zin" sort of way), so we were happy when Dave's beautiful, elegant zins were called exactly that by a panel of judges whose integrity we admire.



Following ZAP - a glorious affair as always - we hit the ground running, propelled by so much momentum. On February 12th we unveiled the second (Spring 2011) issue of our quarterly BE Paper, as well as our newly remodeled tasting room, to Estate members and their guests at our Spring allocation pickup event at the winery. Our entire family (including Mom & Dad!) were present for what felt like a wonderful reunion with old and new friends alike.

Later that week, on February 18th, we poured our 2009 Petite Sirah at "P.S. I Love You." The following Weds. the 23rd Coral and Mom traveled to L.A. for a trade tasting with our distributor there, and last Friday the 25th we did a menu tasting with our friend and BE member, Melissa Teaff, who will be catering our fourth annual Derby Day event in May.

Through it all, we've found that our eulogy for distribution (see previous post here) may have been a tad premature, as most of our out-of-state markets have shown promising signs of reviving.

That brings us current with the updates, and we won't wait another two months to post again... especially as we're preparing to release several exciting new wines and gearing up for our annual online March Madness event! Lots to show and tell.

Thanks as always for reading, and we hope 2011 is off to a brilliant start for you.