The 2010 Gardens is so different from the previous vintage-- do not look for a return to that wine. The chief reason for this is the success of the 2011 Cinsault red-- we normally would have blended this wine into the Gardens, and it would have been about a third of the blend. But the Cinsault was too good! The second reason is that we put about half of our 2010 Mead Zinfandel into the 2009 Gardens (leading to my bottling the wine without a vintage-- it was 82% 2009 and 18% 2010), and bottled the rest of the Zin as 2010 Arrows of Apollo. We had no similar wine in our arsenal to blend into the 2010 Gardens. So the wine is chiefly Petite Sirah from Tenbrink (about 5/7), softened with Hudson Syrah, and about 10% Cinsault-- 30 gallons snatched from the 1MN blend.

The final result is dark and intense-- more like the Gardens of 2007 and 2008. The Petite Sirah is not recognizable as such, but the wine has some of the tarry, smokiness of the Bricco wines, and the serrano ham character of Androkteinos. It is not as fierce or extracted as either of those wines, but one could never call it light. It is charming and ready, but with the strength of a draught horse.