2009 Zinfandel Dina's Vineyard

Don Hartford told me that he thought his 2009 chardonnays "are acting a lot like the 2007s, and the growing seasons were pretty similar as well. There's great aromatic expression to the wines that makes them approachable, but there's the structure to age, too." He said that what makes the 2009 pinots from the coast so special "is their focus and tension, with really good concentration as well. Where the '08s were especially dense, the '09s have an attractiveness, even an openness, but there's more than enough depth to allow them to age just as long." Hartford's '09 zins, which are produced, as always, from extremely old vines (in the century-old range) are especially attractive right now, and lovers of highly expressive, intense renditions of the variety should snap these up.