We don't usually feature a well known brand such as Castle Rock as our wine of the month, but this wine offers tremendous "bang for the buck." The term "brand" is appropriate because there is no Castle Rock winery. The highly successful brand is owned and managed by Greg Popovich and Chris Noble, who purchase grapes from growers throughout northern California and in Oregon and Washington State. The wines are made under the direction of August "Joe" Briggs at several large facilities that contract out space to small (and not so small) producers. Low overhead allows Castle Rock to produce good quality at fair prices. Sales have climbed to 500,000 cases annually making Castle Rock one of the top 30 American wine producers.

This Mendocino Zinfandel is surprisingly delicious. It has plentiful and attractive blackberry, raspberry, plum, and briary fruit with added hints of pepper, spice, and earth. The texture is soft, the alcohol (13.8%) doesn't get in the way as it does with many other Zins, and there's even a nice little finish. All in all, this is an amazing value! Try it with beef kebobs.

Nearly all the grape types used for making commercial wine in the U.S. were originally brought to the new world from Europe. (A few are hybrids of European and native American grapes.) With one exception, the origin of these grapes was long known - Cabernet and Merlot from Bordeaux, Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from Burgundy, etc. The one exception was Zinfandel. Its European origin was undisputed, but exactly where it came from was a mystery. Genetic testing performed by Dr. Carole Meredith in the 1990s finally determined that California's Zinfandel is identical to Italy's Primitivo. Further sleuthing determined that both originated in Croatia, where the grape is called Crljenak Kastelanski.