Out-Take Wine Company - Russian River Valley Zinfandel 2024

With an incredible knack for discovering and sourcing wines from prestigious estates across California, Out-Take offers exceptional, one-of-a-kind drinking experience at an unbelievable everyday price. Thanks to several unique factors — three consecutive large harvests, a steep drop in tourism from San Francisco to Napa to Sonoma, and softening demand for $80 Pinot Noir and $100 Cabernet Sauvignon — many premier winemakers and wineries are burdened with costly grape contracts and production expenses they cannot pass along to customers. This is where Out-Take comes in… going directly to the wineries with cash in hand, swooping in to buy the same wines (at a fifth of the price) that the estates are selling in their tasting rooms. Out-Take is a label born from opportunity, bringing phenomenal single-vineyard, world-class wines to market at everyday prices and delivering the some of the best quality-to-price U.S. wines we carry at the Princeton Corkscrew.

Out-Take’s second release is a remarkable Zinfandel, sourced from one of the Russian River Valley's most historic vineyard sites: a 1.8-acre dry-farmed, head-trained block at the top of Stoetz Ridge, just north of Occidental on the appellation's far western edge. First planted in the late 1800s, this old-vine parcel sat unfarmed for years before being revived in 1995. Over a century of vine age, hilltop elevation and cool coastal proximity do things to Zinfandel you simply cannot replicate elsewhere.

The location does all the heavy lifting. Planted above the fog line at the top of Stoetz Ridge, the vineyard gets warm days for fruit density while frigid nights and cool coastal proximity keep alcohol moderate and acidity bright. The 2024 growing season amplified everything this site does best: a wet winter built deep soil reserves, a cool spring slowed development and concentrated flavors, while short heat waves in September pushed the grapes to full, even ripeness before a compact harvest in mid-October. The result is exactly what this old-vine block delivers at its finest: plush, fruit-forward density with the structure and acidity to age gracefully.

In the cellar, the old-vine fruit was hand-sorted, cold soaked for seven days, then fermented in small open-top tanks with gentle punchdowns and aged in French oak to preserve the sweet fruit and candied spice character. This skillful approach mirrors how the best Pinot Noir is made and it shows!

The 2024 Out-Take Zinfandel is a beautiful, dark ruby in the glass and it wastes no time making an impression. Soaring aromatics blast from the glass with bramble, violet, fresh blackberry, eucalyptus and tobacco spice, layered with the kind of complexity you'd expect from vines over a century old. The palate is where the refinement truly shines: lush and juicy, with a dark berry fruit core, silky tannins and a long, mineral-driven finish that lingers well past the last sip. This is Zinfandel fruit and spice delivered with Burgundy-level finesse… dense without ever feeling heavy, generous without sacrificing elegance. It has the depth and balance to reward cellaring — but honestly — it's so alive and expressive right now that there's no good reason to wait.