Joel Gott Zinfandel California Red Wine 750 ml

Is Zinfandel a pink wine? Not this one. Our grape research describes Zinfandel as a red grape long grown in California, one that can turn up as a red, as the pink wine sold as White Zinfandel, or as part of a blend, and this one is the red. Regional authorities tie the grape to ripe berry and plum fruit with a note of spice, and to a fuller body when the fruit ripens further, though vine age, harvest timing and alcohol can shift the result a good deal. The wine is from California, and its maker, Joel Gott Wines, dates its founding to 1996.

The one price we recorded was $18.49, in our September 2026 checks. We do not have a shopper rating for this wine.

Joel Gott's technical sheet for the current 2023 vintage lists this Zinfandel as a small blend, 94 percent Zinfandel with 5 percent Petite Sirah and 1 percent Alicante, sourced from three appellations, Mokelumne River, Contra Costa and Dry Creek Valley. The producer describes the fruit as coming largely from decades-old, head-trained vines that yield small, concentrated clusters, and finishes the wine at 14.5 percent alcohol with 1.5 grams per litre of residual sugar. It is aged 12 months in oak, 15 percent new American and 15 percent two-year-old French, though the producer's sheet does not say what vessel holds the rest of the blend. The winemaking follows the same pattern as the rest of the lineup: each lot fermented separately, then blended to balance the character of each growing region.

Our call: worth a look if old-vine sourcing and a named blend, 94 percent Zinfandel with small additions of Petite Sirah and Alicante, are reasons enough for you; the producer states both plainly for the current vintage. Pass if a shopper's rating or an outside critic score matters to your decision; neither appears on our record for this bottle, so the case here runs through the producer's own account alone.

The Grocery Store Wine Desk · written Sep 16, 2026 from our research file for this wine. Numbers reflect our latest checks.