Zin Fans Annual Bash: 2013's ZAP Happens (Jan. 31-Feb. 2)

The annual Zinfandel Advocates and Producers Festival (aka ZAP) is coming up a week from now (Jan. 31-Feb. 2) in San Francisco with more than 200 producers attending the Grand Tasting on Sunday.

If you'd like to focus in on the organically grown wines in the Grand Tasting, print out this handy cheat sheet/list and take it with you.

The wineries in bold text are definitely ones to try. The ones with stars are musts.

Bonterra - a certified, reliable Zin you can find in large supermarkets or BevMo stores

***Bucklin - no longer certified but practicing organic on the "Ancient Vines" only - you owe it to yourself to try this heritage vineyard rarity, a field blend of 20+ varietals planted in the mid 1800s.

Carol Shelton Wines (*occasionally has 1 or 2 certified organically sourced Zins - ask about Wild Thing, Monga, and her Rose)

Castoro Cellars (*not sure if any of the certified vineyards are planted in Zin, so ask them)

***Dashe Cellars - McFadden Farm only - a Beaujolais (light) style Zin - you've got to try it to believe it, and then you might be hooked! I have several cases.

Green Truck Wines - certified, superbudget wine

***Grgich Hills Estate - certified organic and biodynamic from the famous Croatian winemaker who helped uncover the mysterious origins of this varietal

***Storybook Vineyards - hands down, the #1 Zin producer in America - and certified organically grown to boot - a hillside Napa Valley legend whose most recent vintages won Wine Spectator's highest Zin scores

The Lucas Winery - all certified organic and from Lodi - a very rare combination! I haven't tried their wines yet, but am looking forward to tasting all their wines.

***Tres Sabores - a Napa Valley gem, and one of the (quietly) famous and superlative (and organically grown) Zins; it made it into the Chronicle's very competitive top 100 wines of 2011. The winemaker grows only 8 acres of Zin in her Rutherford vineyards (prime Cab spot), so it's quite special indeed.

Family Winemakers of California: The Organically Grown Among Them

The folks at Urban Legend (proprietor Steve Shaffer on the left) have the SB as well as a Lake County Riesling with grapes that are in transition to being certified

Voss was new to me - this one's got newly certified grapaes

You can sample the Voss Sauvignon Blanc at Napa Wine Co., says Voss marketing and sales coordinator Crista Johnson. The grapes are just about to be certified (this is the third year on the path to certification).

I hadn't met the folks at Canihan before either...they've got some pretty impressive awards under their belt

Looking forward to visiting Canihan soon - they're in Sonoma. That's Bill Canihan on the right.

Adastra of Carneros

The folks at legendary Calera have just started putting Certified Organic on their back label - Marta Rich shows it off with panache

Josh Jensen of Calera holds up a bottle of their Viognier (I can put their half bottles in my new app since they're under $20)

That would be Calera - for how many years now?

Bucklin and his infamous field blend map dating back to the mid 1800s

Richard Arrowood's Amapola Creek from Sonoma

Another label that I didn't know about and didn't know was organic - Audelessa - from Glen Ellen; Parker's a fan

Oakland's Aubin/Verve makes a Pinot Noir sourced from Oregon's Momtazi vineyard's biodynamic grapes

Greg Graziano from Mendocino has Eddie Graziano's organic Zin (but it's almost all gone)

And the always impressive Grgich Hills (completely biodynamic)

Mila Handley from Handley Cellars - I saw some newbies here getting blown away (and rightly so) by their sparkling rose (I agree - it's soooo good)

Spencer (of Elizabeth Spencer) and I had a brief chat about how do you know something is organic if it's from Italy...to be continued

The always wonderful Mike Dashe and I realized we both worked together at Apple long, long ago (a previous lifetime, to be sure) - I am a  huge fan of the wines he makes from McFadden's grapes

Corley of Monticello has some in transition wines

I ran into the wonderful former wine director of Fish Ehoud Amos, and his wife - they wanted to make sure I got a chance to try the wines from Stone Edge - definitely going to visit them soon (Sonoma/Mount Veeder) - that's Dorothy Moller-Racke, Stone Edge Farms' marketing director, on the right.

Stone Edge's Surround is a blend of four nearby vineyards (all certified organic)

Stone Edge's Cab

Jim Milone from Terra Savia pouring  - almost all of his wines are in my forthcoming app. Look for tasting videos to follow in later posts.

John Fetzer and Patty Rock from Saracina - their new Chardonnay is AWESOME and especially for $16

Saracina's inaugural articles was on display (2004)

Definitely the best dressed award goes to Jason Haas from Tablas Creek, who was doing a fabulous  job showing off their newest vintages (one of which made the Chronicle today) - he was kind enough to do some spur of the moment videos, too - of which later

More GeoSpatial Goodness

I am a big fan of maps, and today had the pleasure of visiting Bucklin Old Hill Vineyard in Sonoma (more on that later).

One of the many pleasures of the day was seeing this map of the vineyard, said to be the oldest vineyard in Sonoma, which has no less than 26 varieties growing in it. The uber-field blend, as it were.

Owner, grower and vintner Will Bucklin had this beauty of a map made of the vineyard. Enjoy. Click on this image to see "embiggen" or go to the Buckzin.com site.