My wife is the Zin drinker in our family. She discovered the 2015 vintage and fell in love. I have been able to obtain a case of that vintage in the secondary market and I bought Fred’s offer on BD to add the 1016, 2017, and 2018 vintages to our cellar. For us, there is no need to look any further.
If you guys are committed to Scherrer zin, the key thing is to start buying futures from them. I think it’s $300/case ($25 per bottle) for their zins if you essentially prepay for a case a year earlier on futures, compared to $40 a bottle at their list price for bottles in stock.
At $25 a bottle, the value is insane, but equally importantly, with larger quantities, you can more easily set a portion of them aside to age.
If you guys are committed to Scherrer zin, the key thing is to start buying futures from them. I think it’s $300/case ($25 per bottle) for their zins if you essentially prepay for a case a year earlier on futures, compared to $40 a bottle at their list price for bottles in stock.
At $25 a bottle, the value is insane, but equally importantly, with larger quantities, you can more easily set a portion of them aside to age.
Thanks Chris. I didn’t know Scherer did that. Fred has my email address now and I hope he makes the offer. I will contact him as well. We have been through a lot of Zins at our house. Many of them were just too hot for me with alcohol levels of 15.5% or a little higher. Fred’s are far more suited to my taste and more importantly, my wife really likes them.
Michael - if you are on the list, you will get the offer. We do a mixed case of shale terrace and old and mature vines every year.
From what I understood in the past, they really did not offer much in terms of distributor discounts. Therefore, it always seemed to be the case that there was a decent mark up on their wines, with the best prices going direct through the winery or perhaps one or two large retailers close by. Not sure if things have changed much since.
Cheers
Michael,
We’ve added you to the ‘mailing list’ so you’ll hear about anything, especially Futures. The Zin is offered in the summer and RRV PN in the fall. Zin futures was our main financing vehicle to get this operation off the ground back in the early '90’s and we have continued offering futures by the case every year since even when we didn’t need to. The ‘catch’ (if you want to call it that) is that it is case purchases. So you end up with a deeper understanding of how the wine develops over time.
Our long-term customers have generally determined that for their taste, our style of Zin (in particular) has a very significant up-side to time in the bottle. Critics have pretty much missed this attribute to our style, underestimating aging potential to a huge degree. To them, looking at the older wines has no point as they are not ‘current in the marketplace.’ So be it.
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Fred,
I ordered from you on BD, are we automatically put on the mailing list when we order or do we have to add ourselves?
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Michael,
We’ve added you to the ‘mailing list’ so you’ll hear about anything, especially Futures. The Zin is offered in the summer and RRV PN in the fall. Zin futures was our main financing vehicle to get this operation off the ground back in the early '90’s and we have continued offering futures by the case every year since even when we didn’t need to. The ‘catch’ (if you want to call it that) is that it is case purchases. So you end up with a deeper understanding of how the wine develops over time.
Our long-term customers have generally determined that for their taste, our style of Zin (in particular) has a very significant up-side to time in the bottle. Critics have pretty much missed this attribute to our style, underestimating aging potential to a huge degree. To them, looking at the older wines has no point as they are not ‘current in the marketplace.’ So be it.
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That’s great news Fred. When it comes to aging Zins, I have no idea what that means. We did buy a case of your 2015 in the secondary market. It has 5 years on it and it is the reason, I bought your more recent vintages on BD. Would you venture a guess as to the outer limits of aging?
I’m very interested to hear Fred’s thoughts, as well.
Just looking on CT at recent tasting notes for vintages in the 2003-2007 range, it seems like the comments are mostly very positive. Recent notes on the 1997 are glowing.
Disclaimers: (1) those are CT notes and not ones that I wrote, (2) whether the way a wine changes with age is improvement or not is a highly subjective thing.
The first Scherrer zins I bought were the 2011 OMV, and I still have three left. I haven’t had one for several years, maybe I should check in and post a note. 2011 was an atypical vintage – a very good one in my subjective opinion – but it would still be one data point.
I am in the process of drinking my 2011 stash of Turleys, and can attest that they age very well, especially the more robust ones like the ones from Howell Mountain and the Petite Syrah naturally. My recollection is that the Old Vines seemed to be fading a bit, but last night’s bottle, Grist was smooth and balanced. I think the only downside is that I’ve seen cork breakage on bottles with that much age.
Been on the mailing list seemingly forever. Earliest bottle I remember is the 1994 Turley Black Sears Zin!
We automatically add you when you order unless you ask us otherwise. Since there is no obligation to do anything (even opening the emails we send is optional), it’s low risk.
Very funny, Dave.
Michael, It really does depend on how much one values secondary perfumes over primary fruit to say what the outer limits of aging of our Zins are. For my taste, the early 1990’s have been in a holding pattern for the past decade. So, that and the recent passing of my dad it makes me ponder as to whether the wines I currently have in barrel will outlive me. That is a subject with mixed emotions, for sure. Since I have been (hopefully) refining this style for several decades with aging in mind, I like to think they recent wines will age even more gracefully than the earliest vintages.
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That was the answer for which I was hoping. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Chris, I agree with you that 2011 is an atypical vintage. Speaking specifically to this Zinfandel, it was a nice, cool season not unlike 1991 all the way through harvest of our Zins. The rains that changed the later part of the vintage occurred well after we were in the barn. That, along with our 2011 RRV PN, which was harvested on a similar time-frame are among my favorite vintages for these wines. I see them both aging according to ‘the plan.’
On a parallel subject, Thackrey’s 1989 Orion was harvested before the late September rains that marked the vintage thereafter. That wine has aged incredibly well.
And again, people have different expectations of what aging can do for a wine. Size matters as well. I’ve seen CT notes criticizing the aging of our wines by finding a 15 year old 375 of Zinfandel beginning to show signs of being ‘tired.’ Mileage varies significantly.