  |
|
|
|
Toucan Wines—Artisanal ZinfandelTiny California wineries produce some of the finest wines.
Doug Timewell's artisanal winery in California's Arroyo Grande Valley offers one of the tastiest Zinfandels anywhere.
It's not often that we see a winery devoted to a single wine. Especially when the very name of the winery suggests multiple offerings. This article highlights a very unusual, small winery that produces one of the finest Zinfandels in California's Central Coast region-Toucan Wines in Arroyo Grande Valley. The Paso Robles AVA has long been identified with superior Zinfandel fruit. Not only local producers such as Peachy Canyon, Turley, Eberle, and Nadeau Family Vintners, offer peppery, earthy full flavored Zinfandels; but Zinfandel specialty wineries such as Ridge and Rosenblum offer a Paso Robles bottling. The most highly prized Zinfandel fruit from Paso Robles comes from the Benito Dusi vineyard, located right on Highway 101 and planted in 1923. At this time Dusi sells his superior fruit to two wineries: Ridge (80%) and Dover Canyon. But he allowed Doug Timewell of Toucan Wines to take cuttings from his nearly century old vines to create a cloned vineyard in Arroyo Grande Valley, 40 miles south. There's a small block of Petite Sirah which allows Timewell the advantage of a blended Zinfandel as well as a second wine when there's enough to bottle. The eastern end of the Arroyo Grande Valley contains one of the oldest plantings of Zinfandel known, planted in 1880 and still producing. Just over the hill lies the new Toucan Wines vineyard, planted from the cuttings taken from the Benito Dusi vineyard. The Toucan Wines vineyard, planted to the Dusi clone of Zinfandel with a small section of Petite Sirah provides fruit for one of California's finest Zinfandels. It's a big, ripe, and mouth filling wine reminiscent of the highly rated Turley Zinfandels. We'll have tasting notes in a future article. What amazes us is that Toucan Wines is a one man effort. That is, the entire operation-planting, trellising, irrigation, harvesting, pruning, and winemaking-is carried out by Doug Timewell with assistance from his wife Terrie Leivers and a few friends and neighbors. Production is presently limited to around 300 cases, sold to local wine merchants and Toucan's enthusiastic cellar club. The wine is made in what would pass for an oversize garage with an oversize closet which functions as a barrel room. Wineries like Toucan remind us of those small family operated dairies that produce the great artisanal cheeses like the richly flavored Rouge et Noir Camembert from Marin County, CA, and Mary Keens' luxurious Humboldt Fog goat cheese from Humboldt County, CA. Cheeses like these and wines like Timewell's Zinfandel are the result of one person, or a small team of people working together, overseeing the entire operation from beginning to end. The result can be extraordinary. Visit Toucan Wines online and experience artisanal Central Coast Zinfandel at its best.
The copyright of the article Toucan Wines—Artisanal Zinfandel in New World Wine is owned by Alan Boehmer. Permission to republish Toucan Wines—Artisanal Zinfandel in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
|
|
|
|
