2007 Bugay Vineyards Sonoma County Zinfandel

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Mission Codename: Going Up

Operative: Agent Red

Objective: After a protracted surveillance, send Agent Red to infiltrate Bugay Wines and Vineyards, the producer of some of Agent Red’s favorite wines. Retrieve Bugay’s exceptional 2006 Zinfandel for our demanding Operatives

Mission Status: Accomplished!

Current Winery: Bugay Wines and Vineyards

Wine Subject: 2007 Zinfandel Mayacama Mountains

Winemaker: Randall Watkins

Backgrounder: Agent Red first learned of today’s winery nearly five years ago – during a clandestine mission to a public tasting. Red tasted dozens of wines that day, and declared a Bugay wine to be the best wine of the entire event. Unfortunately, Bugay proved to be a difficult winery to infiltrate. Their limited-production wines are almost always impossible to procure, given that they are usually snapped up by a loyal and eager wine club. Persistence paid off for Agent Red and his hard work is your gain, today. Please read his full review, plus his interview with winemaker, Randall Watkins, below:

Wine Spies Tasting Profile:

Look – Darkest garnet. Perfectly clear, and darkening at its core. After the wine is spun, it coats the wall of the glass with beautiful magenta. After a moment, the wine coalesces into tall, thin legs that run slowly down the glass.

Smell – Blackberry preserves, blueberry, dark raspberry, black cherry and soft brown spice mix with dried leaves, bramble, sweetwoods, black pepper and toasty oak.

Feel – Cool, soft and round on entry. Bright and mouthcoating, with a grippy feeling that leads to a plush dryness that spreads from the edges, inward.

Taste – Darkest black cherry, smoky overripe blackberry and dark plum are followed by braised cassis, braised fig, bramble, dried black flower petals and black pepper.

Finish – Ultra-long and darkly juicy, loaded with mix berry fruit and soft spice. As flavors dwindle, earthy bramble, oak and dark flower petals linger.

Conclusion – We are in love with this fantastic Zinfandel! The extra long finish is a fitting crescendo to delicious flavors, exciting aromatics and supple mouthfeel. Built to compliment a great meal, this wine balances an even acidity against bold dark fruit, spice and earthen elements. Pair with a spicy meal, a great steak or juicy roast. Randal Watkins has managed to create an even better wine with this follow-up to the 2006 that we featured back in 2010. Bugay’s mountain fruit and Randall’s winemaking prowess make for one fantastic Zin!

Mission Report:

WINEMAKER INTEL BRIEFING DOSSIER

SUBJECT: Randall Watkins

WINE EDUCATION: Masters in Enology, UC Davis

CALIFORNIA WINE JOB BRIEF: Winemaking for past 16 years in Sonoma, Napa and Chile; current owner/winemaker of Watkins Family Winery.

WINEMAKING PHILOSOPHY: I am committed to crafting limited production wines from the concentrated fruit of hillside vineyards. I believe that vineyard location, soil composition, climate and slope are key factors in creating wines of extraordinary quality and distinction. My goal is to produce wines of great balance with regard to ripe fruit, quality tannin, and natural acidity.

WINEMAKER QUOTE: ”All of my winemaking efforts go toward producing wines that are rich and intensely flavored, reflecting both their origin in the vineyard, and the balance and elegance of small lot winemaking.”

FIRST COMMERCIAL WINE RELEASE: 1994, 1999 as head winemaker


WINEMAKER INTERVIEW

AGENT RED: Greetings, Randall. We are thrilled to be showing your wine today. Thanks so much for taking some time to answer questions for our Operatives today.

RANDALL WATKINS: I am always happy to discuss our Cabernet Franc! I understand you are quite a fan.

RED: Indeed! In fact, today’s wine was my top pic, when I tasted it at a trade event. This is one fantastic wine! Tell me, was there a specific experience in your life that inspired your love of wine?

RANDALL: I grew up on a ranch in Sonoma County where we had horses, chickens, rabbits and 1 acre of Zinfandel and Chardonnay. My father didn’t sell the grapes, he was a home winemaker. Each vintage, all of his friends would come over to help hand-harvest the grapes and crank the hand stemmer-crusher. Then they would celebrate the harvest and their friendship with a big picnic, enjoying wine from previous vintages. From the time that I was 10 years old, I helped with the farming and the harvest of my family’s small vineyard. And when I grew older, it was my friends who came over for the harvest parties and many more great memories!

RED: What wine or winemaker has most influenced your winemaking style?

RANDALL: For Zinfandel, Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay, Dan Goldfield has been influential. I worked under him at Hartford and La Crema and learned about the Burgundian methods of cold soaking and open-topped fermentation to help extract color and express the fruit. He was one of the only winemakers who was producing an elegant style of Zinfandel, which is the style in which I make the Bugay Vineyards Zinfandel.

For Cabernet Sauvignon and other Bordeaux varietals, I learned a lot working with Álvaro Espinoza, one of Chile’s most talented winemakers. In addition to his experience at Château Margaux, Álvaro is a well-known wine consultant and has his own highly rated label, Antiyal. He taught me the importance of organic farming, picking at perfect ripeness, and achieving a sense of place from the vineyard site.

RED: Who do you make wine for?

RANDALL: I make wine for people to enjoy and share. I want the people who try my wine to want to have another glass, and that is why balance is so important to me. Some Zinfandel wines can be overripe and raisiny, sweet but with a burn from high alcohol. I prefer to make a more elegant style which has balanced alcohol and acidity, retaining the freshness of the fruit and the liveliness that makes young Zinfandel such a fun wine to enjoy. And that is why I was awarded Sonoma County Winemaker of the Year for my Monte Rosso Vineyard Zinfandel a few years ago!

RED: How would you recommend people approach your wines and wine in general?

RANDALL: Have fun with it, feel comfortable having an opinion on what you like and don’t like. Go with your instincts. There is no point in suffering through a wine that you really don’t like just because you have read that it’s supposed to be good. Wine, like art, is subjective. Try new things, new producers, new varietals, wines from different growing areas. Trying different wines is the only way to build your sensory memory and discover your own tastes. Realize that the most important characteristic of a good wine is balance. A wine’s flavor can have many different elements: fruit, tannin, spice, oak, etc. The best wines have all these things in a complex harmony, and no one flavor overshadows the others.

RED: Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?

RANDALL: There is no better way to end a day than to relax and share wine, food and conversation with friends!

RED: Thank you so much for your time, Randall. We learned a lot about you – and your wine. Keep up the great work, we are big fans!