Jeff Gaffner and Saxon Brown.

Saxon Brown Zinfandel

This past Saturday, all of us attended the huge annual ZAP Zinfandel tasting in San Francisco and had the opportunity to taste many old favorites and new discoveries.  We’ll post a full ZAP recap here soon, but for now, I wanted to focus on one producer in particular that I have meant to write about before now.

Saxon Brown is the small label started in 1997 by winemaker Jeff Gaffner and his wife Terisa.  They are the owners of the 100+ year old Casa Santinamaria vineyard in Sonoma and they produce wines from there as well as other Sonoma vineyards.

My first taste of Saxon Brown was a Parmelee-Hill Zinfandel – a wine I’ve now enjoyed over and over again.  Jeff’s wines always seem to have a very satisfying depth of flavor and his zins have a surprising texture and complexity.  The combination is addictive.  

The Parmelee-Hill vineyard sits right on the edge of the Carneros and Sonoma Valley AVA’s.  In addtion to Saxon Brown, owners Steve Hill and Gwen Parmelee sell grapes to other noteworthy producers of Zinfandel and (primarily) Pinot Noir including Kistler, Patz&Hall, and Flowers. 

BUY:  Saxon Brown Zinfandel Parmelee-Hill 2006