Skip to content

2019 Primitivo

  • Tasting Notes

    Eye
    Magenta core, scarlet rim.

    Nose
    Violet, lilac, Chinese five spice, cardamom, kumquat zest. Secondary notes of red raspberry hard candy.

    Palate
    Medium body, grippy tannins (will soften in bottle with time). Texture reminiscent of ripe, fuzzy, juicy peach.

    Cellar life
    Drink now through 2035.

  • Specs
    • Composition
      100% Estate Primitvo
    • Vineyard source
      Brown Estate — Big Field
    • Appellation
      Napa Valley
    • Barrel aging
      12 months in 45% new French oak
    • Alcohol by vol.
      14.9%
    • Production
      400 cases in 12 x 750ml format
  • Background

    In 2009 our 10-acre Big Field vineyard, formerly planted entirely to Zinfandel, was replanted to include small blocks of Petite Sirah (3 acres), Primitivo (2 acres), and Tempranillo (1 acre). The latter two now are stand-alone wines in the Brown Estate lineup, the present vintage being our first estate Primitivo bottling after David discerned the 2018 fruit was showing distinctive and noteworthy characteristics. What comes forward in the resulting wine are high-definition spice notes — also present in more muted iterations in our estate Zinfandels — along with luxuriant fruit and floral notes and a hint of minerality. Primitivo and Zinfandel, both cloned from the same Croatian grape (known as Crljenak Kaštelanski), are something like fraternal twins. We look forward to seeing how this wine matures both on the vine and in the bottle, and we invite you to join us in tracking its development through this and subsequent vintages.