Cinnamon Continued



	"Winemaking, for me, begins in the vineyard with the quality of the fruit. You can’t make great wine without great fruit. What’s more, the quality and character of the grapes has a great influence on the style of the wine. If the fruit doesn’t have big and sexy flavors, neither will the wine in the glass."

Eric Cinnamon is one of Sonoma’s Zin Masters – great for Rancho Zabaco considering that he’s responsible for crafting award winning Rancho Zabaco wines.

At the ripe, old age of thirty – something, Eric has already shown that he is a winemaker of extraordinary talent and vision. After leaving U.C. Davis with a degree in Fermentation Science, he worked at a Central Coast Winery before joining the Frei Brothers Winery in Sonoma, where he quickly became a Winemaker of note.

Now he’s a man on a mission. Eric wants is turning some of Sonoma’s finest grapes into the Big, Bold taste of Rancho Zabaco Zinfandels. Open a bottle of Rancho Zabaco with friends and experience Eric’s creations for yourself.



	"One of the things that sets Rancho Zabaco apart as a winery is our location. Not that we’re in Sonoma, but that our vineyards are located throughout the county and even as far as Lodi. With coverage of this kind, I can make different "degrees" of Zinfandel just by letting the fruit be itself."



	"At Rancho Zabaco, I have a wonderful variety of tools at my disposal. I’ll use fermenters just as an example. Depending upon the grapes and style of the wine, I can specify stainless steel, punch-down or rotary fermentation. Such flexibility affords me greater creativity. If I were a painter, instead of working solely in oils, I could paint using watercolors or pastels as well. It means I can match the expression more closely to the media. For a Winemaker, that’s a very powerful and liberating feeling."



	"I love making Zinfandel because there is no one taste. It can be many things, again according to the fruit. We make some wines that are huge, intense, and voluptuous. Dancing Bull, on the other hand, has much of that same spirit, but it is expressed in an entirely different manner – with a more playful, lively and brighter fruit taste. This range makes our wines as fun to make as they are to drink."


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