2023 St Peter's Church Zinfandel

James Suckling 95 pts

A broad, gorgeous, velvety wine that shows deep raspberries and blackberries on a full, soft texture. Cocoa, black currants, black pepper and blackberries. Light tannins make it seem extra plush and delicious. Drink now or hold.

Jeb Dunnuck 94 pts 

The 2023 Zinfandel St. Peters Church is an inky, youthful black/purple color and reveals brooding aromas of pen ink, black licorice, plum compote, eucalyptus, and mixed black fruits. Raised in foudre and 500-liter barrels, it includes 15% black varieties in the blend, contributing savory richness and additional structure. Full-bodied yet surprisingly light on its feet, it finishes with mouthwatering acidity and excellent balance. Drink 2026-2040.

Wine Spectator 92 pts

A dark bruiser of a Zin, with concentrated flavors of blackberry, licorice, bittersweet chocolate and savory pepper that build toward broad-shouldered tannins. Needs time to reveal itself. Best from 2027 through 2035. 

Behind a modest Catholic church in Sonoma County sits a little-known vineyard that’s also one of the most influential in California. The vineyard had an unlikely rise to fame. Clocking in at only 5 acres, it’s in northwest Sonoma County city that’s not exactly in the lexicon of notable Wine Country towns. The vineyard was originally established in the early 1870s by Irish immigrants Frank McElarney and Patrick Smith. Although the original vines were lost to phylloxera, the site was replanted in the 1880s with Zinfandel, Carignane, and Petite Sirah. These varieties continue to thrive across the five-acre vineyard today. In a strategic move to protect the more prized Zinfandel, McElarney and Smith planted it at the center of the vineyard, surrounding it with Carignane and Petite Sirah—varieties that were considered less prestigious at the time.

In 1906, the vineyard was sold by the Smith family to Italian immigrant Andre Ghiotti. It took more than 100 years for the site to make a name for itself. Ownership later passed to the Catholic Church, which used the fruit both for sacramental wine and for sale to larger producers. In the early 1990s, St. Peter’s Church parishioner Jack Florence Jr. was starting out in vineyard management and convinced the pastor to let him take over the farming. He wanted to sell the grapes to more reputable wine programs, and in 1994, he landed a breakout deal with the vanguard Zinfandel producer Rosenblum Cellars in Alameda.

Founder Kent Rosenblum, who led the country’s modern day Zinfandel boom in the 1980s, started to produce a limited bottling of St. Peter’s Church Zinfandel that was an immediate hit. “It couldn’t have fallen into better hands than Kent’s,” said Florence. “He really was the first one to put it on the map.”

That same year, Florence, along with his longtime partner and renowned California vineyard manager Ulises Valdez Sr., planted the first St. Peter’s Church franchise vineyard. He transported cuttings (also known as a clone) from the old vineyard and budded them over rootstock high in the rugged and remote hills of Dry Creek Valley to the west. It was one of the first modern day plantings in what later became the Rockpile appellation. 

When Florence’s neighbors noticed his success, they proceeded to plant other vineyards nearby — most notably, the Boticelli vineyard — also with St. Peter’s budwood. Soon, Rockpile formed its identity as the land of big and brawny Zinfandels. No longer viewed as an extension of the Dry Creek Valley, the region received its official designation in 2002. Today, Rockpile is one of the smallest wine regions in the country with 160 acres of vineyards that overlook Lake Sonoma. 

“It kind of jumpstarted the appellation because wines from this area were all Zinfandel and it was all the same clone,” said Florence. “There was consistency. People immediately knew what they were getting with Rockpile.”

Rockpile vines are planted at elevations ranging from 800 to 2,100 feet. They benefit from a winemaker’s dream combination of ample sunlight above the fog, and cool temperatures from the lake and other maritime influences, which allow for a long and slow ripening. 

But when it comes to dissecting Rockpile’s fame, the region’s pioneers, like Florence, give most of the credit to the St. Peter’s Church clone. 

Words like “dense,” “concentrated,” “dark” and “intense” are commonly used to describe the clone. Winemaker Jeff Cohn, who used to make wine for Rosenblum and still sources a small amount of fruit from the original St. Peter’s Church vineyard for his personal label, pointed to notes of black cherry, tarragon, and black licorice. 

“It ages incredibly well,” he said. “It’s a hotter area, and sometimes in those hot areas, wines don’t age as well, but this wine just continues to live on.”

The original vines still have plenty of vintages left in them, despite their advanced age. Century-old vineyards are most prevalent throughout Europe and are believed to produce more complex and concentrated wines. But in California, vines are customarily ripped out after 20-25 years when their crop yields begin to decline. While old vines are more susceptible to disease, the St. Peter’s Church vines are healthy and have remained mostly disease-free.

It is believed this vineyard has been spared because it was planted before the prevalence of leafroll and its continued productivity is an act of survival: by continuing to produce flavorful berries, the vine hopes to attract animals and propagate itself.

But there could be other forces at work, Cohn mused — like the church. The vineyard is surrounded by stone benches that represent the Stations of the Cross, symbolizing Jesus’s path to the cross on his crucifixion day.

It’s a simple, unassuming place. “You look at it and go, ‘Eh, it’s OK,’” said Cohn. “It doesn't look spectacular, but it just seems like there’s something going on, like somebody, somewhere has mystical forces to create incredible wines from that vineyard.”