2018 Dashe Cellars Zinfandel Les Enfants Terribles Mendocino County 750 ml

In 1988, Mike Dashe wrote a letter to Lafite-Rothschild asking to come work a vintage at the legendary First Growth estate. It was a novel idea, because at the time, the globetrotting harvest intern phenomenon wasn’t yet a thing.

A paltry number of American winemakers had worked overseas, but Dashe—fresh off a stint at New Zealand’s groundbreaking Cloudy Bay—had real ambition. Lafite (improbably, incredibly) said yes, and after nearly half a year at the French legend, his résumé caught the eye of the legendary Paul Draper, who hired Mike as his assistant winemaker at Ridge.

By 1996, MIke and his wife Anne were ready to strike out on their own label, and over the next decade they established a reputation as one of the most thoughtful producers of Zin in the state. In 2007, he decided to make a Zinfandel using carbonic maceration—a technique that has uncrushed grapes fermenting in a sealed tank—to produce a bright, lively wine that would pair with a wide variety of foods. 

Although it says “Mendocino Cuvée” on the label, it hails from a single vineyard: Signal Ridge, the highest-elevation site in all of Mendocino County. That elevation makes for a long growing season, with a dramatic tension between afternoon sunshine and evening chill—perfect for grapes that are picked with an emphasis on freshness and vivacity. This has beautiful purity of fruit and a delightfully old-school black-pepper ripple that we adore.

Mike originally had the idea for this wine after a conversation with Mark Ellenbogen, the legendary longtime wine director for San Francisco institution The Slanted Door. Ellenbogen lamented that contemporary Zinfandels were not food-friendly—and then Dashe whipped up this classic.