94pts Wine Enthusiast

Mouthwatering and delicious with crisp acidity and a driving finish, this wine offers a pleasing range of flavors including mixed cherries, cranberries, warming spices and savory accents. Both friendly and beguiling, it has pleasing approachability and depth. Firm while moderate tannins and mouthwatering acidity create a palate-cleansing accompaniment to a wide range of foods.

92pts Wine & Spirits

Rory Williams reports that dry farming through the third drought year in a row held yields down by 20 percent. The Frog’s Leap team encouraged freshness in the wine by cold-soaking petite sirah and adding it to the fermenting zinfandel; they also aged most of the lot in concrete. The wine presents a rustic sense of old-time Napa, along with a seamlessly integrated structure. It’s clean and direct, with firm, blue-black fruit that lasts long past each sip.

90pts James Suckling

A medium-bodied, juicy and succulent zinfandel with aromas of dark cherries, plums, wild berries and mixed herbs. Well-rounded with a caressing texture and a satisfying wild berry character toward the finish.

90pts Jeb Dunnuck

Red and black plums, incense, violets, and orange blossom notes all emerge from the 2021 Zinfandel, a medium-bodied Zinfandel that's nicely balanced, has ripe, polished tannins, and a great finish.

Winemaker's Notes

Using their now well-established technique of cold-soaking the Petite Sirah portion of the co-ferment and then infusing it into the fermenting Zinfandel ten days later, Frog's Leap locks in the freshness of the fruit and accentuate the elegance of the resulting wine.

A dash of Carignane adds additional acidity and structure, preserved nicely by their practice of aging Zinfandel largely in small concrete tanks. The resulting wine is beautiful: deeply flavored, balanced, and fresh—a great summer drinker to be sure, especially with a quick chill. But don’t be afraid to put a few bottles away in the cellar; like all Frog's Leap Zins, this wine has decades of life ahead of it.

About the Wine

We are big believers in Zinfandel, and we think you should be, too. Delicious, exuberant fruity aromas belie a sophistication to our wine that pushes the boundaries of what it means to be serious Zinfandel, and lay the foundation for the unexpected—a Zin that can age. I have always tried to push our style in the direction of freshness, balance and elegance, which I believe yields a wine that is both more enjoyable and better reflective of the beautiful vineyards in which we grow our grapes. We farm our Zinfandel in St. Helena, just five miles north of our home in Rutherford, with the vast majority coming from just two vineyards, White Barn and Molinari, both of which sit in the gravel soils of the large alluvial fan that defines this appellation. Zinfandel thrives in this kind of soil; unfortunately for Zinfandel, Cabernet also does well in this soil, and Zin is a vanishing quantity in Napa, despite its seeming ubiquity in the rest of California. However, we continue to farm this heritage grape, in the belief that there is no better grounding for the elegant style of Zin that we love. 

Winery Notes

Frog's Leap is a family-owned winery dedicated to sustainable principles and committed to producing wines with balance, restraint and respect for terroir. Frog's Leap makes its home amongst 200 acres of vineyards in Rutherford at the historic ‘Red Barn’. Founded by John Williams in 1981, Frog’s Leap continues to be family-owned and operated. As the owner and winemaker, John has made every vintage for over four decades. 

Now in its fourth decade of production, Winemakers John and Rory Williams hand-craft Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Zinfandel, Merlot, and an Estate-Grown Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon. Using the best of Napa Valley's organically grown, dry- farmed grapes and the most traditional winemaking techniques, Frog's Leap strives to produce wines that deeply reflect the soils and climate from which they emanate. Thoughtfully shepherding both natural and earned resources, Frog’s Leap consistently returns more than it takes from the environment.

Sustainable

Organic

Blend: 81% Zinfandel, 10% Petite Sirah, 9% Carignane