This pricing on Zaca Mesa’s “Z Cuvée” is just plain ridiculous. The winery is under new ownership, and some upcoming rebranding and repositioning of the wines has prompted them to offer simply incredible deals on current inventory. As you “Insiders” know, here at K&L we don’t like to pass up a too-good-to-be-true deal, so we backed up the truck on this one! Honestly, this wine is a solid value at its typical $25-$30 price. At under $10, it’s an absolute steal. Zaca Mesa is a stalwart producer in Santa Barbara County, with a long history of crafting benchmark wines (especially Rhône varietals) dating back to the late 1970s. Its estate vineyards are firmly established, with mature vines, top-notch farming practices, and a longstanding commitment to quality over quantity. Winemaker Kristin Bryden has been with Zaca Mesa since 2011 and knows the estate inside and out. Traditional, artisanal winemaking, relying on the exceptional raw material produced by the 150-acre estate, is the name of the game here. These are authentic, well-made wines of real integrity. The 2019 Z Cuvée is just hitting its stride and entering a perfect drinking window. There’s an abundance of rich, dark fruit - plum, blackberry, and black cherry - alongside complex notes of dusty earth, garam masala, and smoked meat. Medium to full-bodied, it shows just the subtlest hint of bottle age beginning to emerge beneath the still-robust primary fruit. This wine should remain in its prime pop-and-pour window for the next two to five years and massively overdelivers on quality and complexity at this laughably low price.