For the third year in a row, Adrian Manspeaker and Micah Wirth’s zin from Grist Vineyard is a spellbinding wine. Planted in 1974, this hillside vineyard isn’t old in the context of California zin, but the vines are mature enough to translate the site’s iron-rich volcanic soil into zinfandel with remarkable purity and sheer exuberance. Its red plum and floral white peach flavors are so immediate and succulent, you might worry that the wine is going to drip down your chin. There’s a lacy transparency here that’s extraordinary, the tannins structuring the wine without dominating it, somewhere between peach fuzz and fine gravel. The subtle redwood scent seems to catch the vineyard’s hillside environs. It’s a beautiful, zesty California original. Pour it blind for Europhile friends who claim to dislike zin, and watch their faces light up. (200 cases)