WTN: Cooke Top

[David M. Bueker]

• 1994 Ravenswood Zinfandel Cooke - USA, California, Sonoma County, Sonoma Valley (12/3/2025)
  The Ravenswood library releases that Joel Peterson has done have been more than an opportunity to acquire excellent wine. They have been a chance to time travel. One of my first obsessions when getting deeply into wine was the Ravenswood single vineyard Zinfandels. Hunting through various wine shops I would grab every Monte Rosso, Old Hill, Dickerson, and Cooke vineyard Zin I could find. Fast forward 25 years and Joel was selling mystery cases of old Ravenswood Zins and other wines. Did I buy more than my fair share? Hell yes!
  
  Somehow I managed to assemble a fairly lengthy vertical of Cooke Zin - six vintages. While I thought about putting them together in a tasting, I decided it would be better to drink them one by one. Tonight I reached into the box, and the 1994 came out. That was the first vintage where I had bought the wines in some quantity, though I missed out on Cooke that year. It’s nice to get a second chance.
  
  Still vibrant red, with just a touch of bricking, the aromas started with red cherry and cedar. Air brought age and wisdom - old books, leather, and a gravelly undertone grounding the wine despite the fading structure. It’s the present and the past all in the same glass.

Lovely note, David. I recall going to a tasting in Indianapolis put on by a local retailer in which they served up several of the single-vineyard Ravenswood Zins from a given vintage (I'm guessing it would have been about '01 or '02). We took a recently hired colleague who was wine-curious and who that night fell in love with the Big River Zin that they were pouring (me, I was more interested in the DIckerson and Monte Rosso that they were pouring). In subsequent get-togethers with her, we'd make sure to have Ravenswood Big River on hand, though she was known to slum now and again with Ridge Geyserville She's now the Dean of Science at UC San Diego, so we don't get together with her quite as often these days.

[David M. Bueker]

I remember Big River!

Never had it often, as I was and remain an Old Hill fanatic, but it was a good wine.

I remember Big River!

Never had it often, as I was and remain an Old Hill fanatic, but it was a good wine.

Yeah, I think Old Hill was Joel Peterson's favorite vineyard. Those wines were and are superb. Dunno if you've seen those old Sonoma vineyards, but they're wild: often head-trained, gnarly old vines, many times field blends of vague composition. Those old Italian, Croatian and Portugese immigrants certainly knew something about viticulture.

[David M. Bueker]

Somewhere I have a photo of me standing by Old Hill in 1998.

Joel still makes Old Hill, or makes it again, for his Once & Future label.

Morgan Twain Peterson has mapped Old Hill (and several other vineyards), vine by vine so they now know exactly what is where.