What makes a reserve wine?

I sometimes get asked by our wine club members, “what makes a reserve wine and why is it more expensive”. First of all, and maybe most importantly, our reserve/reserva (if an Italian variety) wines are drawn from our very best vineyards and each barrel is hand selected for the best qualities. For us it, our reserve wines contain more new Burgundy French oak, usually more than 25%, and most of the time the wine is aged longer in the barrel. Because of the refined structure and quality of the wine we also allow it to get more time in the bottle to soften and complex. These wines are produced in smaller lots as well, so the quality remains the highest. Lastly, some wineries put their better-reserve wines in more expensive packaging, such as more expensive capsules, labels, better corks, tissue paper or plastic bags to protect the labels in shipping or give the wine a better presentation to use for gifts.  All of the effort that goes into these wines costs more money. (Though, this is not always the case for some large wineries. The most notable is a large producer who puts “Vintners Reserve” on their Chardonnay. I believe it is not their best Chardonnay and it is certainly not produced in small volumes.) The word “Reserve” can also be like “Old-Vine” or “Special-Selection” and can be just a marketing ploy to get you to buy their wine. These terms are not policed and may be viewed as “In the eye of the beholder” context. Some people may in-fact, like your regular bottling more than your reserve bottling. As for us, we truly try to make our reserves wines the highlight quality of the certain variety. We spend a lot of time and effort trying to ensure our wines are deserving of the title “Reserve.”

For our 2017 Graziano Zinfandel Reserve, we used the best vineyards and lots of our 2017 Zinfandel and we picked the best and newest French oak barrels. The wine also received over 3 years of aging in these barrels which is very rare for the world of wine. We also chose a heavier more expensive bottle and placed the wine in plastic bags to protect the label from scuffing during shipment to show an impression of the wine’s quality.

We hope you appreciate all the extra time and expenses we put into this, as we do with all our wines.

All the very best,

Gregory Graziano