2019 Primitivo
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Notes
NOTES FROM CHRIS GAITHER MS, 12/20/24:
Eye
Ruby core, bright garnet rim.Nose
Initial notes of baked and dried cherries, raspberries, red plums followed by red licorice, cinnamon, clove, dried carnations, and maple syrup.Palate
More savory on the palate, with notes of fresh fruit, rooibos tea, and apple skin on the finish. Mouthfeel is round and supple. Quite a bit going on here!Cellar life
Drink now through 2035. -
Background
In 2009 our 10-acre Big Field vineyard, formerly planted entirely to Zinfandel, was replanted to include small blocks of Petite Sirah (3 acres), Primitivo (2 acres), and Tempranillo (1 acre). The latter two now are stand-alone wines in the Brown Estate lineup, the present vintage being our first estate Primitivo bottling after David discerned the 2018 fruit was showing distinctive and noteworthy characteristics. What comes forward in the resulting wine are high-definition spice notes — also present in more muted iterations in our estate Zinfandels — along with luxuriant fruit and floral notes and a hint of minerality. Primitivo and Zinfandel, both cloned from the same Croatian grape (known as Crljenak Kaštelanski), are something like fraternal twins. We look forward to seeing how this wine matures both on the vine and in the bottle, and we invite you to join us in tracking its development through this and subsequent vintages.
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Tech
- Composition
100% Estate Primitvo - Vineyard source
Brown Estate — Big Field - Appellation
Napa Valley - Barrel aging
12 months in 45% new French oak - Alcohol by vol.
14.9%
- Composition
