2018 Vintage Spring Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the first Turley release of the new decade! Let’s kick off 2020—and the first release of our 26th vintage! — with a bang, shall we?

The 2018 vintage marks the 20th harvest for our beloved Turley Estate Zinfandel in Napa!

We’ve done a bit of spring cleaning and re-organizing. One of the first (teeny) changes I made when I started working at Turley nearly a decade ago was to move the Old Vines from the spring to the fall release—seemed like a no-brainer to give that wine more time in the bottle and offer it during more suitable weather, and it’s all the better for it! Now, the powers that be (Larry) agreed to give it a shot with the Howell Mountain wines (Rattlesnake Ridge & Dragon) as well! It’s something I’d wanted to try for quite some time, but as you can see, it can take a while (nearly 10 years!) for everyone (ahem, Dad) to get used to a new idea. In the same vein, we decided to move the Pesenti Zinfandel to the current release. This beautiful certified organic estate wine, with its delicate floral and vibrant red fruit aromatics, always seemed more suited to springtime anyway!

Finally, it is with heavy hearts that we bid farewell to the prize-winning poet and overall beautiful person Jane Mead, along with her incomparable vineyard, Mead Ranch. The 2018 Mead Ranch will be the 19th and last vintage under Turley. We mourn the loss of a grower and her eponymous vines and will treasure her memory alongside this final paradigm of Atlas Peak Zinfandel for many years to come.

Old Vines Young Love,

Christina Turley, Larry Turley, & Tegan Passalacqua

Turley Wine Cellars

2017 Vintage Fall Newsletter

Hello, friends old and new!

            Welcome back to the world of Turley! These waning days of summer are a season of returning: back to school, back to work, back to reality. Though it’s been, ahem, a minute since I’ve actually gone “back to school,” I still feel like this time of year—more so even than the start of a new calendar year—is a chance for reinvention. A reimagining of the self, reflecting on the ways you’ve grown thus far, and deciding who you’re going to be moving forward. At least, that’s how it feels on August’s better days; other times, it can feel like a month-long stretch of the “Sunday Scaries.”

            Staring down the barrel of the upcoming season, it’s nice to have something to look forward to. Sometimes, just the anticipation of opening a bottle of wine can turn a day from grey to great. A simple joy, a little prize for yourself, whether it’s a reward for a job well done or a consolation for one that, well, wasn’t. I like to think of ordering the fall release as a pre-emptive self-care strike: when that package finally arrives, future you will take a moment to thank present you, and both of you will be grateful for taking such good, thoughtful care of yourselves!

            We’re also welcoming the return to normalcy for our vineyards most affected by the California droughts, especially Ueberroth! Paso Robles was hit harder than any other region we work with during the California droughts, and Ueberroth in particular suffered yield-wise, with very little to go around. But now, with the “normal”-to-healthy rains we saw in ’16 and ’17, Ueberroth is back, baby! Just look at all that verdant glory!

For a vineyard in its 134th year of life, may we just say, daaaaaaaaaang you look good!

            Sadly, we also have a farewell to say. Jay Heminway, proprietor and winemaker of Napa’s Green & Red winery as well as our beloved grower of the Heminway vineyard, passed this summer. One of the most hard working, committed, passionate people we had the honor of knowing, his kind smile and spirit will be missed by all who were lucky enough to know him. For a more in-depth look at his incredible history and impact in the wine world, please see his obituary in the Napa Valley Register. I know we’ll be holding our few bottles of Heminway especially close to our hearts come fall.

Old Vines, Young Love,

Christina Turley, Larry Turley, & Tegan Passalacqua

Turley Wine Cellars

2016 Vintage Spring Newsletter

Dear Friends,

            We’ve got a lot of wines; you (probably?) don’t have a lot of time; so let’s get down to it!  

            2016 was the first year of mild relief from the drought. With more vegetative growth and a lot less distress, the vines were all healthy at harvest. The resulting wines still contain some of the darkness, depth and density we saw with the drought-ravaged vintages, though in 2016 the wines were able to maintain their delicacy and grace. Tasting through these wines was inspiring, and we are delighted to be sharing them with you now!

            A quick update about the 2017 fires in Napa and Sonoma as well. We are deeply grateful for the outpouring of support our entire community received during what was an insanely tumultuous, chaotic, and trying period for all. Our families escaped unscathed, and Turley was very lucky from both a vineyards and wines standpoint. (Zinfandel ripens early, so all our vineyards had been picked and the wines were safely in tank or barrel well before the fires began.) Sadly, Mead Ranch on Atlas Peak was one of the epicenters of the fire, and the Meads lost everything; every structure was destroyed. Though the vines are miraculously still standing, it is impossible to predict what the long-term damage will be, and now there is nothing to do but wait, see, and hope for the best.

In the meantime, we’d like to welcome a new wine to the Turley family: the 2016 Casa Nuestra red! A proper California field blend, the vineyard is a heavily mixed planting of Petite Syrah, Zinfandel, Carignane, Mourvedre, and a handful of other fun obscure varieties (Negrette and Refosco, anyone?); hence the “red wine” designation on the label. From an organically-farmed-since-1979 vineyard neighboring us in Napa Valley, it’s a spot we’ve long admired; indeed, the time between receiving the call that the fruit would be available and harvesting the vineyard ourselves was less than 8 hours! How’s THAT for hustle?

            Speaking of, we’ll let you get to it. Enjoy perusing the notes and wines in your offer, and as always, please reach out should you have any questions. We’re here for you.

Old Vines Young Love,

Christina Turley & Tegan Passalacqua

Turley Wine Cellars

2015 Vintage Fall Newsletter

Dear Friends,

            Tasting through the lineup of Fall wines is one of the main perks of being at Turley, as these are some of our favorites. In fact, it’s so enjoyable, we are often forced to do it more than once, just to reallllly get the truest sense of each of these individual wines, as well as an accurate picture of the overall vintage. It’s work, we swear. Ah, the sacrifices we make for our jobs…! (hic) These wines have benefitted from the additional few months in bottle, and will be even more ready and a-rarin’ to go by the time they reach you. As always, though, we respectfully request that you wait until the door has closed behind the delivery person before you rip into an Old Vines; it’s only fair, considering he won’t be able to do the same until he finishes his shift.

            After our diligent work on your behalf, tasting through all 16 (!) of the wines on this release, it’s clear that the 2015 vintage is most reminiscent of the wines of 2013: dense, concentrated, with incredible depth and complexity. The only difference is that while the 2013 wines had some of the strongest tannins we’ve seen in a Zinfandel, the 2015 wines are more silky, approachable, and luscious. This 2013 comparison bodes well, given that it was one of the best and most well-received Turley vintages to date.

            We also have a couple of introductions to make: first up, we have a new addition to the Old Vines cadre. After a long, literal dry spell here in California, in which we saw more and more old vineyards succumb to financial or weather-related challenges, sources for this beloved wine were near-impossible to find. Lucky for us, our winemaker & head vineyard manager Tegan Passalacqua has a nose like an old-vine-detecting bloodhound, and he tracked down a stellar new site from Lodi, with plantings from 1907 and the 1950’s. Finally, we have a little more of this wine to go around, which you will see reflected in your offer.

Larry is the one on the right; just read his belt

            We’re also introducing a new wine with some very old roots: the Whitney Tennessee Vineyard Zinfandel, from a pre-Prohibition planting in Alexander Valley, Sonoma. Named for one of Larry’s four daughters (ever wondered what the 4 stars on the cork stood for?) the wine is an excellent addition to the family. Longstanding members may remember a wine with the same name from the mid-1990’s, though this is a separate vineyard that Turley purchased in 2009.

            Speaking of new additions, Larry’s oldest daughter Christina, the winery’s Director of Sales, married fellow wino & Rosenthal Wine Merchant’s West Coast Director Ben Andersen this summer; another daughter, Nell Montana Turley, Lt. Junior Grade USCG, performed the ceremony. Christina even managed not to spill any of the ’99 Hayne Petite Syrah they celebrated with on her dress, and Larry is so very proud.

Old Vines Young Love,

   Turley Wine Cellars