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Plenty of fruit but no bluster
"It's hard to find value in Napa Valley, although great wines there are plentiful. That said, Buehler Vineyards, owning their own property for years, has turned out some very well-made, moderately priced wines."
--
Robert Parker
Buehler Vineyards is an idyllic 300 acre winery located 6 miles east of St. Helena in the Conn Valley, purchased in 1971 by John and Heidi Buehler (both now deceased) as a retirement project for John.. His first commercial release was in 1978, when he crushed enough grapes by hand to produce 700 cases. In1983 the couple hired young Heidi Peterson Barrett, who guided the wines from vine to glass until 1988. She would go on to gain fame as the winemaker at Screaming Eagle and she is now one of Napa's top consulting winemakers.
Buehler's son John Jr. now oversees the estate, devoted to Cabernet Sauvignon and dry-farmed Zinfandel, with his son Jonathan. Other family members remain actively involved in the operation. Many Buehler employees have been with the winery for decades, including winemaker David Cronin.
The 2016 Buehler Napa Zinfandel utilizes fruit from a 4.5-acre vineyard block that is nearly a half century old and has been dry farmed for most of that period.
Interspersed among the head
-trained vines are a handful of
Petite
Sirah vines, representing
perhaps 5% of the total vines in this block. A trad
itional field
companion to Z
infandel in pre
-prohibition California
vineyards, Petite S
irah contributes pepper,
color, and tannic structure to the wine.
This is a complex and elegant Zin, worlds away from the jammy, in-your-face examples that largely occupy the under-$15 tier for this variety. (The Beuhler regularly sells for $25.99.) It is nonetheless unmistakable as Zinfandel, with a wild-berry core augmented by minerals, cherries and spearmint. There's a ton of fruit, but it;s far from one dimensional. The Beuhler was reated 92 points from James Suckling and 90 points from Wine Enthusiast.
We made a deal that enables us to sell this Zinfandel for just $14 a bottle when you purchase a case of 12. The grilling season unofficially kicked off last weekend. A cookout isn't complete without some bottles of Zinfandel to accompany the grilled fare. Click here to purchase Best Case Scenario Grand Cru #139 for just $168.
Eden Stone
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