Turley Juvenile Zinfandel 2022

TOP 100 WINE OF THE YEAR 2024 #14 : Juvenile Zinfandel is made by Turley from a variety of younger vines that have been replanted in several of their old vine sites, ranging in age from 6-25 years, from 15 of Turley's vineyards across California, including Hayne, Ueberroth, Pesenti, Salvador, and Vineyard 101.  Aged in 95% used oak, 5% new, 80% French oak, 20% American for 12 months. Bottled unfined. The first Juvenile vintage was 1999.   

Turley Wine Cellars was founded in Napa Valley by former emergency room physician Larry Turley in 1993. Under the direction of winemaker Tegan Passalacqua, Turley now makes 50 different wines from over 50 vineyards across California, primarily Zinfandel and Petite Syrah, with many vines dating back to the late 1800s. By farming organically and focusing on old vine vineyards of these varieties, Turley aims to both create and preserve California’s unique winemaking culture. All of Turley's vineyards are either certified organic by California Certified Organic Farmers or somewhere in the process, and they use all natural yeasts in the fermentations. 

Wine Advocate reports: 'Turley Wine Cellars has long been one of the more enviable wine operations in California. Larry Turley receives enormous credit for nearly single-handedly preserving many of the heritage old vine Zinfandel sites that exist in northern California. Most of them were threatened with being torn up with what was believed to be more popular varietals such as Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir. In addition to organic farming, natural yeast fermentations have always been the rule, and the percentage of new oak used has dropped from a high of 30% to about half that. Their Zinfandels are never shy, and the alcohols remain in the 15% to 16% range because Zinfandel is rarely ripe at lower sugars. It appears that Larry Turley was destined to resuscitate these old vine vineyards as he worked for a quarter of a century as an emergency room doctor. He now works full time shaping wines from nearly three dozen old vine parcels. As Larry says, he’s never met an old vine vineyard he didn’t like.'