Dunnewood Vineyards

George Phelan, the winemaker at Dunnewood, wanted to make Coro Mendocino from the first vintage, in 2001, but didn’t have the wine available to create a blend that qualified. So he followed the protocol’s development and the way his peers in Mendocino worked with it, and came out in Coro’s sophomore year with a sweet, blueberry-inflected high-octane version that turned heads.

The 2003 Dunnewood Coro is almost two-thirds Zin and a quarter Syrah , with just under 10% Sangiovese, sourced from the warm inland Ukiah Valley drained by the Russian River. With this combo Phelan has again delivered exceptional vine-berry sweetness – the wine smells as if you’ve just picked a hot, warm blackberry in full sun and crushed it in your fingers. Once in your mouth, the wine saturates with sweet blueberry and blackberry, yet the pH is one of the lowest in the 11 Coros from 2003. So the oak tannins (from both new American and new French barrels) emerge gently from the sweet fruit attack, and the acidity lifts the wine such that it finishes with another cloud of sweet flavor. Once again, a distinctly different result from the Coro equation and one worth seeking out.

Reviewed July 4, 2006 by Thom Elkjer.