Crush Wine & Spirits

Thanksgiving for Charter Oak: The Great American Zinfandel

With one week to go, you’re gearing up for the Thanksgiving holiday. The folding card-table has been dusted off for the kids, the turkey has been ordered, and uncle Bob has been reminded not to drink too much. Preparations are well under way.

The wine, however, needs to be selected. While I am busy collecting staff recommendations for your holiday table, today I want to offer a bottle I've been waiting all year to recommend. We were confirmed on this wine today, just in time for Thanksgiving!

The Charter Oak Zinfandel “Monte Rosso” 2004 is big, bold, rash, daring, provocative, and endlessly complex. Its rich luxurious fruit is the perfect counterpoint to what can be the rather dry meat of Turkey and also had the acidity and fruit to stand up to Dad's sweet potatoes and grandma’s cranberry sauce.

This wine is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, our Zinfandel of the Year. Made from legendary Sonoma Valley vineyards planted in the 1880s – during Grover Cleveland’s first term in office – this Zinfandel is incredibly full-bodied, yet so smooth you’ll swear you&srquo;re drinking satin. Ultra luscious, the wine shows seet strawberry and black raspberry fruit, good rich spice with complex notes of earth. This wind has everything you could possibly want in a Zinfandel. The only catch is that there are a scant 150 cases produced.

Then again, as everything at the winery is done by hand, 150 cases is actually a lot to produce. An honest-to-God labor of love, Charter Oak is really little more than a few acres of land, a modest house, and the heart and soul of owner, proprietor, and winemaker Rob Fanucci.

Though Charter Oak is barely known except among Zinfandel connoisseurs, when tasted against the cult Masters of Zin (Turley, Martinelli, Biale, even Rafanelli) Charter Oak easily matches, and even tops, the power and complexity of these wines.

The one thing Charter Oak doesn't share with these wines is the fantastical levels of alcohol (and the fantastically high prices).

While a coveted Turley can top the 17% alcohol mark and push the $100 envelope, Charter Oak "Monte Rosso" holds itself around 15% and we are proud to offer it at the discounted price of $44.99 until the wine runs out.

What makes a wine like Charter Oak better than good, what makes it profound, is not its power, or concentration, or complexity, though it has all those things in spades, but its soul. This is a wine with richness of personality; a handmade wine that pours forth with strength, daring, and individuality. Yes, kind of like America herself.

While I encourage you to stock up on this “All American” wine for the Thanksgiving feast, in truth, Thanksgiving is just an excuse to drink wine this good.

If you are interested in this offer please let us know by replying to this email or by calling Crush at (212) 980-9463.

Enjoy!

Stephen Bitterolf
Crush Wine & Spirits

2004 Charter Oak Zinfandel “Monte Rosso”
150 case produced
List price: $54.99
Crush Sale Price: $44.99
(Net, no further discount)

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A Great American Story

Rob works the same land his Italian immigrant grandfather did – a plot of land bought in the 1920s just outside of St. Helena, in California's Napa Valley. Not only does Rob farm this same land, he also uses some of his grandfather’s 100+ year-old winemaking tools, including a wooden “unch-down” tool and an old backet press (both, naturally, kept in the chicken coop when not being used).

Winemaking at Charter Oak

Only natural yeasts are used; everything in the winery is done by hand. During fermentation, the cap is punched down 3 times a day which works the juice into a foaming lather and helps extract a whopping amount of flavor. After 3 to 4 weeks in the fermentation tank, the wine is carried by hand in 5-gallon buckets and oured into barrels (both new and old) for extended aging. When the wine is ready, it's bottled without fining, without filtration. This wine is handmade in a way that few other wines in the world are.