In the Cabernet-obsessed realm of Napa Valley, Robert Biale Vineyards is an outlier: A heritage winery focused mainly on Zinfandel. When commercial winemaking was restored in California after Prohibition, the Biale family, as immigrants from Northern Italy, chose to cultivate (only) this flavorful and hardy grape.
Aldo Biale’s homemade wines were sold–illicitly at first–beginning in the 1940s. Two wines, “Party Line” and “Black Chicken,” reference Biale’s practice of selling the wine under the table (along with regular groceries) through his party line phone service. A “black chicken” was the code word for a bottle of Zin, now the name of Biale’s most famous wine.
The family’s wine-making tradition was revived, and the first legal Black Chicken vintage was in 1999. These days, the winery has some of the oldest vines and the most acclaimed Zins anywhere in the United States.
A rep for Biale Vineyards stopped by The Wine Authority on Thursday with an assortment of beautiful Napa Valley Zinfandels (and a Petite Sirah for good measure). Every Zin lover has a particular relationship to the grape, and such was the topic of conversation as we sipped them.
Some remember carafes of dry and spicy Primitivo on red-checkered tablecloths, the perfect accompaniment to pizza and meatballs. Some recalled visits to Lodi or Paso Robles to see the contorted old vines, as big around as a grown man and double or triple his age. Some (me) had once gravitated to Zinfandel for its alcohol strength, powerful fruit, and rawkin’ gothic product design–only in recent years discovering that premium and cooler-climate Zins even existed.
Biale’s wines are a mature version of the old-school Cali Zins that first captivated my palate: Full in style, but made with a deft touch.
These are dry wines with a long, lush finish. Vibrant and well-ripened fruit is seasoned with peppery varietal spice–all smoothed over by carefully calibrated aging in French oak. The proportion of new oak and the length of aging (9 to 15 months) varies across these bottlings.
Biale’s signature style of Zinfandel is made from low-yielding, dry-farmed old vines. Some date back to the 1880s, and the R.W. Moore Vineyard (planted in 1905) is the oldest in Coombsville. Attentive hand-harvesting and sorting ensures that every vintage tastes just as the winemakers intended.
The “Black Chicken” is an especially lovely bottle, with intensity and complexity to win over even the fussiest Napa Cab loyalist. A weighty, concentrated wine, it’s nonetheless playful with wild strawberry, amber/sandalwood, and citrus peel joining Zinfandel’s classic plummy berries. (The Wine Fairy had tried all these wines very recently at a trade tasting, but I pretended like I hadn’t so I could savor them again.)
Wines tasted (prices are retail from winery website):
Biale “Party Line” Zinfandel (2023) – Napa Valley – $28
Biale “Black Chicken” Zinfandel (2023) – Napa Valley – $55
Biale R.W. Moore Vineyard Zinfandel (2023) – Coombsville, Napa Valley – $65
Biale “Royal Punishers” Petite Sirah (2022) – Napa Valley – $55
Biale “Royal Punishers” Petite Sirah (2023) – Napa Valley – $55
Review disclosure: I was not compensated or provided any free products for this review (except for the tasting included with my membership at The Wine Authority). Opinions expressed on The Wine Fairy blog are entirely my own.
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