Descendants of Sarah Esther Chase have been growing grapes since the late 1800’s in the area around St. Helena, but began making wine under the SE Chase Family Cellars Label in 1998. Though they began wine growing by purchasing the Madrona Estate in the late 1800’s, and eventually building Greystone Cellars (which is now home to the Napa Valley campus of the Culinary Institute of America), the family’s vineyards were wiped out with the rest of the Napa Valley by the phylloxera epidemic of 1894.

In 1903 Sarah’s daughter Maude and her husband William Alliston Hayne planted the Hayne Vineyard and continued the family’s tradition of grape growing. This wines comes from the original planting of 1903 Zinfandel, head trained, on St. George Rootstock. The gravelly soil, and slope of the vineyard, along with the exceptional age of the vines make it on of, if not the best, Zinfandel Vineyards in Napa Valley.

The family only began making their own wine in 1997, and though every vintage has been a revelation, they have remained inexplicably under the radar. That will change. Thi wine is aged for 20 Months in a combination of new and used French Oak. Only 1247 cases are made.

This wine is characterized by a unique combination of big, spicy blackberry and raspberry fruit, wonderful acidity, and a pleasantly firm tannin all rounded out by a pleasant, but not overwhelming hint of oak. Try it with duck, salmon or pork loin, and don’t be afraid of a little sweet or spicy in the dish, the wine can stand it. Drink now – 2015.