Sky, Zinfandel Mount Veeder Napa Valley, 2016

At 2,100 feet—the highest vineyard on Mount Veeder—Sky produces Zinfandel that has nothing in common with jammy California stereotypes. Lore Olds began farming this 14-acre east-facing slope in 1973, dry-farming organically and pressing by hand with a century-old basket press. Mount Veeder's ancient marine seabed geology—pushed up five million years ago and largely untouched by the volcanic ash that blanketed the rest of Napa—creates shallow soils of fractured shale and sandstone that stress vines into producing tiny, intensely concentrated berries at roughly half the valley's average yields. The 2016 delivers mountain berries, raspberry, blood orange, and black pepper with bright acidity and underlying minerality—far closer to a wild, structured European red than anything from the valley floor. Just 800–1,000 cases produced annually.