Wine Club January 2026 | 2024 Primitivo

Its been almost two years since we’ve had a Primitivo, and this one is hot off the bottling line and out of the cellar!

Primitivo is a unique grape, in that it is nearly identical to Zinfandel. Originating from the same family of wines out of ancient Croatia, they differ only in where they are traditionally from and characteristic typical of that region. Primitivo is what you will see out of Italy and the other Adriatic countries, while Zinfandel is it’s American counterpart. We continue to call this wine Primitivo, as the vineyard in Lodi has lineage from plantings in Italy. It also helps us distinguish it from our Colorado grown Zinfandels!

Both Primitivo and Zinfandel can be tricky grapes to work with. Being able to not only withstand, but drink in exquisite fashion when ripened to higher alcohol levels, there is a risk. To achieve that ripeness and classic jammy fruit flavor, there is potential to ferment to too high of alcohol too soon, thus killing the yeast and stopping fermentation short before all the sugar has been converted to alcohol. This is why it can very common and delightfully accepted to sometimes have less than 1% residual sugar on Zinfandels and still consider them dry, bold wines. We have been fortune over the years to largely have fully dry Zinfandels and completed ferments, even with our indigenous fermentations. Balistreri Primitivo, while one of our most popular wines and a lovely bottle in both the recent 2021 and 2022 vintages, have sometimes carried 1/2% of residual sugar. Until now!

Okay, that was a lot of info! How does it taste? Fully dry, this 2024 vintage could be our best yet. There is no shortness of plump ripe fruit flavors in our new Primitivo. Boasting a stout 15.6% alc., the wine is incredibly easy drinking while maintaining lots of body and youthful structure on the finish. The fruit is black plum, grape jelly, and black currant preserves across the tongue as it moves to fill the edges of your palate with velvety tannin. We of course ferment all Primitivo/Zinfandel whole-cluster, giving the wine protection during fermentation, and complex savory spices over time as it ages and softens in the bottle. We are so proud of this delicious, jammy new vintage of Primitivo and can’t wait for you to stop in to pick it up!