2013 Sky Vineyards Zinfandel Mt. Veeder

Community Tasting Notes

Community Tasting Notes (36) Avg Score: 90.8 points

  • Very Good+
    Ref: Others' and my prior TNs. This racier not-gloppy-fruit-bomb is a great display of what's possible with Zin. That said, I felt this bottle lost a bit of drive and even fruit vs. prior bottles. The CT Community drinking window was showing 2022 - 2030. I'm setting mine to 2018 - 2027, going against the grain of several TNs regarding longevity.

    13.4% abv

    Empty bottle weight: 471g

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  • Dark crimson in color. 13.4% ABV. Pretty nose of tart red fruits, baking spices and earth. Medium body with perfect acidity and balance. Packed with crunchy red fruit. Salmonberry, cranberry, spearmint and earth on the palate. Nice length on the finish. Charming, Claret style Zinfandel that has aged well. Best over the next 1-2 years.

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  • Drank 1/2 with chicken in tomatillo and hominy sauce. Excellent balance of acidity and sweetness against a difficult flavor combination.
    1/2 with salmon, spinach and kasha, also worked well

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  • Not very flavorful or spicy. Drank with gumbo one day, grilled salmon the next. Just ok

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  • 7th bottle consumed, 2nd note. Starting to take on more traditional mountain Napa tones of small berries, luscious red fruit, and oak spice. Its fun and funky early years are now turning slightly more austere and pedigreed. The gripping acidity has been absorbed somehow. Could be bottle variation, or sign of reaching maturity. Drink now-2032. This is a Zinfandel for anyone suspicious of Zinfandel. ~92pt

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  • Tasted after decanting for about five hours. This wine is still very aromatic: red fruit, strawberry, cherry, some fig. Also underbrush, redwoods, thyme, cardamom. On the palate, there's still medium plus acid and tanning--the wine has plenty of structure. More high toned fruit: bing cherry, lingonberry, and some plum. The perfumed elements of the nose show back up on the finish, with notes of cedar, thyme, and fig.

    This wine is still in great shape and there should be absolutely no rush to drink it. It's approachable now (with a length decant), but has yet to reach its prime drinking window. Time to bury my other bottles deep.

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  • Pretty consistent form my notes a year ago in 3/2021. It still has a darker color that doesn't hint at this being a 9 year old wine. There's a lot of red berry, some spice and pepper, earth and leather. Palate is similar with some cranberry tartness and cassis. I like TomLee's phrase about it being a claret style zin since that really does capture so much about this wine. Medium body, medium+ acidy, still has fine grained tannins. It still has this old school elegance that I miss in most modern California wines that I've tried. No rush to drink this one. It will age well for quite some time. More impressive than last time, and I look forward to tasting it again in several years.

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  • Crimson in color. 13.4% ABV. Pretty nose of red fruits, citrus and a hint of leather. Medium body with exquisite acidity. Light, fresh Claret Style Zinfandel. Salmonberry, blood orange, earth and pepper on the palate. Exceptional length on the finish. Delightful and so well made. The emphasis here is on finesse and elegance over power. Most Zins just aren’t made like this anymore. I’ll drink my last few bottles over the next several years.

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  • Drink pretty soon; this might be getting past its prime. Black fruits, currants, smoked meats, granite, and allspice.

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  • My wine of the night of the 10 selections we tasted blind. Labeled at 13.4% ABV yet not short of flavor nor energy. It has a cinnamon Red Hots quality that I liked, along with a pure juicy blackberry. Grippy with great concentration of fruit in a jam-like build that really honors Zinfandel well. Excellent.

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  • Really nice zin, excellent actually. Favorite of the zin flight for me.

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  • Medium-full body, recognizable Zinfandel fruit with a savory finish. Still a bit of bitterness from the tannins. Very nicely done, and clearly 5-10 years of more life ahead of it.

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  • A fantastic old school styled Zin, balanced and with moderate extraction, but grown on a mountain that provides it with amazing structure and tannin. This is drinking nicely now but I expect it will blossom over the coming years.

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  • Still has a deep color. Nose is briar berries, but also some spice, pepper, and earthiness. Some other folks have compared it to Syrah and I can see the comparison. Palate has more dark berry, cranberry, and earth. Medium acid and supple tannins. This is super old school, and I love it for that. It's not overripe, over extracted, or overly alcoholic. It reminds me of CA wines I drank from the 70's and 80's. 8 years old but really a baby and I can see this going another decade. I don't buy a lot of CA wines anymore, but if I could find more wines like this, I would.

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  • Such a different zin than I’m used to. A lovely wine though. Lovely blackberry nose. Medium bodied. The bramble, blackberry, earthy notes ring true. This wine definitely showed better day two. Good acidity and very mild tannin. This is A very enjoyable zin and I’ll track down more... but it is very different than zins I’ve had from Carlisle or Turley or something like that.

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  • Expressive spicy and briary nose, but also a little grapey like a barrel sample. The attack is quite tart all lemon and cranberry, followed by a bright and sappy midpalate and a finish marked with dry, even coarse tannins. Aromatically, this shows more like a cool climate pinot or syrah. A zippy, authentic, slightly rustic wine showcasing foremost its acidity. I like... I tried the last third of the bottle after a few days in the freezer, and that was the best part, probably raising my final score to an 89.

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  • Decanted 30 minutes - should have been > 1 hour. Lot's of volcanic minerality and a dose of acidity says that this wine is still young. Needs a few years or longer decant!

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  • Decanted 45 minutes. As others have suggested, this is more of an old style Zin - and a real pleasure to find a non-over ripe, non-over extracted version! Really nice brambleberry and earth on the nose with structured black raspberry on the palate with interesting minerality. Excellent quality fruit and nice tannin/acid balance on the finish. I know this has years of life left, but it is really enjoyable right know! And, at $20 - a QPR champ!! 91+

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  • Crimson in color. 13.4% ABV. Beguiling nose of red fruits, anise, earth and pepper. Medium body with great acidity. Light, fresh and incredibly charming. Strawberry, raspberry, kirsch and pepper on the palate. Exceptional length on the finish. This is great candidate for aging with moderate tannins, ample acidity and the relatively low ABV. Best over the next 3-5 years.

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  • 1h air, could probably have used more. Medium ruby color, with notes of boysenberry, anise, cedar, leather and caramel. Satin texture, medium-full bodied, rich red fruit and sinewy tannins.

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  • Inviting nose of red bramble fruit and peonies. Ready to go on the palate from the first sip - bright, tart and zingy, showing exuberantly cran-raspberry fruit, citric and zingy, with dried flowers and bramble undergrowth. Crunchy mountain fruit for sure. Chalky moderate tannins, dry earth, and a bit of citrus peel on the finish. Drinking well and has the structure to easily go another 10+ years. Less brooding and rustic than the Bedrock version, but I definitely get tward’s Bordeaux reference point.

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  • I was curious about this shortly after delivery so shared a glass PnP. I have to say I wasn't so sure about the hype. It came across a bit high-tone fruity. Good energy, but not particularly complex. Sure, it's not a high-octane over-extracted Zin, so truth in advertising. But just not being something isn't enough. However, I had already opened a 20-yr Bordeaux before trying this, so my palate had already adjusted to a more aged Bordeaux profile.

    This showed its stuff the second night. It needed the air even at seven years. The brambly Zin showed itself along with more delineated fruits, some spice and hints of aged character to come. Elegant and even regal / serious. Bordelaise Zin!?!?

    Wines like this are why my cellar is overflowing. I've got to buy several of these just to see what happens over a decade...

    I think there is upside from '90'.

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  • Flowers and tree sap on the nose. Savory, crunchy red fruit. Medium/high acid, medium/high drying tannins, medium/full body despite a low (for zin) ABV. Despite the lovely nose, and acid/tannin structure that will certainly allow this to keep, its somewhat absent in fruit and guess it will only become more austere with time. It reminds me a bit of Broc zins, which flirt with the AFWE.

    Night 2: Willy Wonk Runts candy emerges. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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  • Day 1-This is unique. Very similar to a northern Italian alps Nebbiolo. Tart cherry. High acidity. Minimal fruit but decent structure. Maybe this blossoms overnight. 88 today

    Day 2-Ok guys. Second try here. Wine sat out overnight.
    It’s certainly more open and showing more fruit, but this is still lean and mean. Probably great with the right food. I suppose if you know and understand the style this is a great wine, but it’s certainly not typical to bedrock, Carlisle or the other darling vintners of this board. Served blind I’m willing to bet most people on this board would think this is something from a different continent. I previously mentioned high altitude Nebbiolo. Don’t get me wrong, I do like it, but it was not expected. Curious to see what this evolves to in 5+ years. 90 today.

    Summary. Hold bottles another 3 years and give it a ton of air.

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  • This is simply stunning after three hours of air. On the nose, plenty of crushed raspberry, strawberry, and brambly zin fruit, but with a depth of cedar/redwood, cumin, burnt earth. Tons of complexity--this smells like California in a glass.

    More fruit on the palate, but a ton of structure. Acid, lots of acid. A solid wall of tannins--not terribly brusque, but not velvety either. More herbal complexity. I've never described a wine as tasting of redwoods before, but that's exactly what this tastes like. I can't believe this was $20. I'm buying a case.

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  • Medium- bodied, old world styling. Zinfandel grown on the west side of Mt. Veeder AVA in Napa... what a rare bird this is particularly amongst $180-250 Cabs grown on neighboring properties. Acidity is the chief component, it creates bright fresh-picked berries that carry the wine from start to finish. After a few hours soft tannins bring earthy, chalky tones and plush structure that create a more balanced picture. Delightful having a Zinfandel crafted at high altitude, with low sugar levels. Bought more, it's a steal if you like enjoy the style. 91-92

    Edit: day two, the wine is even more balanced and gaining complexity. Should cellar fine for years but in this unusual case the berries may outlive the tannins, better to drink by ~2025 perhaps.

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  • Ok, but a little dull

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  • Beautiful wine. So light on its feet for zinfandel. Bright red fruit notes with underlying complex savory notes running the whole length of the finish. improves and picks up more leathery notes with air. Still young and full of energy. back up the truck for these!

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  • Surprisingly youthful zin for its age, with lively acidity and tight delicate tannin. Oddly reminds me of best concentrated examples of loire cab franc (or Austrian blaufrankish). Raspberry, blackberry, dark cherry, with touch of caramel and smokiness. Atypical zin with great structure, medium bodied, finishes long, and persistently perfumed. Now 90-91 but will get better.

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  • Blueberries, crushed granite, fairly closed. Really liked the balance of this wine, but not much showing. Will wait several years on remaining bottles.

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  • Very nice, old world-style wine. With 13.4 ABV, certainly not in-your-face. I got tastes of blackberry, blueberry, earth, and spice. Warm tannins that helped balance it out and a nice soft finish. Among the more restrained Zins I have had. Great balance and personality in a somewhat refined package. Would definitely buy more if I have the chance.

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  • Nose has an almost Nebbiolo quality: cherry, leather, vanilla and some oak. Palate is medium-light bodied with round, ripe red fruit and baking spices. Tannins are present on the medium finish but a wave of acidity comes in to wash it out and make you want to drink more. Excellent on its own, or pair with an Asian-spiced pork loin.

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  • Opened one of these a week after they arrived. Scents of earth, licorice, smoked jerky, and black cherry. The palate is light-medium bodied, with high acidity, and notes of strawberry, cranberry, and spice. This is such a unique take on Zinfandel and how it could be interpreted. In many ways this reminds me more of Barbera as there is a real rusticity and earthy element. Outstanding. If you like "old world" wines this is worth trying.

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  • Crimson in color. 13.4% ABV. Brilliant nose of brambly red fruits, pepper and a hint of peach. Medium body with mouth watering acidity. The embodiment of a Claret style, mountain grown Zinfandel. Strawberries, raspberry compote, cocoa and earth on the palate. Tremendous length on the finish. Just a delicious, albeit somewhat restrained, Zinfandel. Best over the next 3-5 years.

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  • Deep ruby, verging on purple. Big black fruit on the nose: cherry, blackberry, cassis. Mid + body, mid acidity. Big grippy tannins provide structure. Rich plum and cherry on the palate, with plentiful cassis and a spicy under layer of leather and pepper.

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  • So disappointed was very excited to try out this bottling. Definitely oxidized. Almost like vinegar on the palate.

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