2024 Turley Juvenile Zinfandel California

Turley Wine Cellars has been turning out world-class Zinfandel since 1993, when Larry Turley and winemaker Helen Turley built a house around California's oldest, most historic vineyard sites. Today, under director of winemaking Tegan Passalacqua, Turley farms 47 separate vineyards and bottles around 50 distinct wines — all Zinfandel and Petite Sirah, all from vines that matter.

The Juvenile is where the future of those historic sites lives. Young vines — 6 to 25 years old — planted in legendary parcels like Hayne, Kirschenmann, Pesenti, and Vineyard 101 get tagged and picked separately. The fruit is clonal material pulled from the same old-vine heritage stock that built Turley's reputation, replanted to keep the vineyards alive for another century. Ten to twelve sites contribute each year. The project started over a decade ago, and as the vines mature, the wine gets better.

The 2024 vintage delivered an especially delicate, gracious Zinfandel — savory, fresh, and balanced in a way that reminds you the grape can do more than sheer power. Purple in the glass, with a sublime nose of red fruits, peach, and baking spices. Medium-bodied with ample acidity, cherry and strawberry on the palate, pepper and raspberry on the finish. Aged in just 10% new oak, so the fruit stays front and center. 15.2% alcohol, but it drinks lighter than the number suggests.

This is the Zinfandel that drinks like the $50-plus single-vineyard bottles Turley is known for — except it's $35, and it's built to crack tonight. Drink it over the next five or six years, but don't overthink it. The scores prove the quality: 94 James Suckling, 93 Wine Advocate, 92 Jeb Dunnuck. The price proves we bought it right.