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Stagiaire Wine

Still Life with Woodyard 2018

Price: $32.95
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Tasting notes

Carbonic maceration and a long whole-cluster infusion give this Zinfandel a freshness that is simply not common for the variety — think crushed strawberry, dried mint, and a faint whiff of chaparral rather than jam or extraction. At 12.5% and made without additions, it drinks like a California field wine pulled from a different era.

BodyFruitTanninAcidity
Wild StrawberryMintEarthDried Herbs
  • Style: Dry, light-bodied red; 100% Zinfandel; carbonic and whole-cluster ferment; 12.5% ABV; zero additions
  • Grapes & Terroir: 100% Zinfandel; Woodyard block, Poor Ranch; Hopland, Mendocino County; 1,162 ft elevation; head-trained, dry-farmed, CCOF-certified organic; St. George rootstock; vines established 1880s
  • Winemaking: Two ferments: carbonic maceration in stainless steel + 50% whole clusters with 50% pressed juice; 4-week maceration; pressed together into old neutral barrels; ~12 months aging; zero sulfur, zero additions
  • Serving: Serve at 56-60F; light chill recommended; no decant needed
  • Pairing: Grilled lamb merguez, charcuterie, dry Jack or sharp cheddar, mushroom and lentil stew
  • Similar To: For fans of light-touch Gamay or carbonic Grenache who want to explore California old-vine Zinfandel done without extraction

Still Life with Woodyard is 100% Zinfandel from the Woodyard block at Poor Ranch, a 5.71-acre parcel sitting at roughly 1,162 feet in the eastern hills above Hopland in Mendocino County. The Poor family homesteaded this land in 1888, and the Woodyard block vines have never been irrigated or treated with synthetic chemicals. The vines are head-trained on St. George rootstock, dry-farmed, and CCOF-certified organic.

Winemaker Brent Mayeaux split the fruit into two ferments: one carbonic maceration in stainless steel, and one using 50% whole clusters with 50% direct-pressed juice infused on top. Both ferments ran for four weeks before being pressed together into old barrels for nearly 12 months of aging. No sulfur or other additives were used at any stage.

The result lands closer to a Gamay-brained Zinfandel than anything extracted or jammy — fresh strawberry and dried herb notes with a savory, slightly earthy undercurrent from the high-elevation hillside site. At 12.5% ABV, it is light on its feet for the variety.

The light frame and bright acidity make this a natural match for charcuterie, grilled lamb merguez, or a mushroom and lentil stew. It also works well alongside aged hard cheeses like a dry Jack or a sharp cheddar. Serve with a slight chill at around 58F.

Wine details

Dry/Sweet:, Dry
Wine Type:, Red Wine
Wine Style:, Light Body
Grapes:, Zinfandel
Farming:, Organic
Vintage:, 2018
Alcohol:, 12.5%
Country:, United States
Region:, Mendocino
Appellation:, Mendocino County
Bottle Size:, 750ml
Sugar Level:, Zero Added Sugar

We will process and ship your order in 2-3 business days, you will receive a shipping confirmation email with tracking as soon as the Carrier scans the shipping label.

Ground shipping time depends on location, here's a breakdown:

West Coast: 1-2 business days
Midwest: 3-4 business days
East Coast: 5 business days

Process time is not shipping time. Shipping time starts from the days successive to the day of shipping, after the order has been processed.

See here our shipping policy.


Important Compliance Requirements

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If you'd like to receive a refund for a package that was returned to us after FedEx made three delivery attempts, we can do that but we must keep a $20 refund fee; FedEx charges us a lot of money for returns, unfortunately, I can't stress this enough.


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Placed an order. What next?

1. You will receive an order confirmation email with your order summary.*

2. As soon as your order ships from the warehouse, usually within 2-3 business days, this applies to all shipping rates, you will receive a shipping confirmation email with your tracking information. 2DAY shipping refers to shipping time; we still need 2-3 business days to prepare an order. We need to pick and pack, QA, add printed collateral, and palletize the orders.

3. Please track your package using the tracking service.

4. The carrier will attempt delivery a maximum of 3 times. After 3 delivery attempts, your package will be sent back to our warehouse.**

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**If delivery is attempted 3 times without success, or if you fail to retrieve your package from the carrier depot by the stated deadline, the shipping fee will not be refunded to the customer.

Returns Policy

If you are not satisfied with your purchase, please contact us at (424) 414-2040 or via e-mail at hello@primalwine.com between 9 am and 5 pm Pacific Standard Time, Monday through Sunday, we would like to understand and try to solve your concerns. We can offer refunds only as store credit.

Producer profile

Stagiaire Wine

Stagiaire Wine is the project of Brent Mayeaux, a New Orleans native who studied engineering before transitioning to wine. The name comes from his time as an apprentice at a winery in the Jura, France, where local vignerons called him the stagiaire. He subsequently worked in Central Otago, New Zealand, and the Adelaide Hills, Australia, where he encountered the natural wine work of Philippe Bornard and Gareth Belton of Gentle Folk, before returning to California in 2018.

Mayeaux works exclusively with organically and regeneratively farmed vineyards, sourcing from sites along the California coast from Santa Cruz north to Sonoma and Mendocino. He produces zero-zero wines — no added sulfites and no other cellar additions — from his winemaking space on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. The 2018 Still Life with Woodyard represents his early work, when he was still farming and sourcing directly from vineyard parcels across northern California before shifting fully to a negociant model in 2021.

His winemaking approach varies by wine but consistently avoids additions. For the Woodyard Zinfandel, he used two separate ferments — carbonic maceration in stainless steel and a whole-cluster infusion with pressed juice — both running four weeks before being combined and pressed to old neutral barrels for approximately 12 months of elevage.

Wine region

Mendocino, United States

Mendocino County sits approximately 130 miles north of San Francisco within the North Coast AVA. It is one of California's most climatically varied wine regions, divided broadly into a cool coastal western zone centered on Anderson Valley and a warmer, more continental eastern corridor around Ukiah, Redwood Valley, and Hopland. The eastern hills above Hopland, where Poor Ranch sits, are sunny and warm during the day with significant overnight cooling, placing them well above the fog line that affects lower-elevation Mendocino sites. Vineyard blocks at Poor Ranch range from 860 to 1,800 feet in elevation.

Mendocino County has 13 nested AVAs and is nationally recognized as a leader in organic viticulture, with roughly 25% of its planted acreage certified organic. The eastern inland zones produce the county's red wine core: Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Carignan, Grenache, and Syrah, many from old-vine plantings established by Italian immigrant families in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Poor Ranch's Woodyard block carries no specific sub-AVA designation and is labeled under the Mendocino County appellation.

Frequently asked question

We will process and ship your order in 2-3 business days, you will receive a shipping confirmation email with tracking as soon as the Carrier scans the shipping label.

Ground shipping time depends on location, here's a breakdown:

West Coast: 1-2 business days
Midwest: 3-4 business days
East Coast: 5 business days

Process time is not shipping time. Shipping time starts from the days successive to the day of shipping, after the order has been processed.

See here our shipping policy.

Signature on delivery is mandatory for wine deliveries. Please make sure someone is at the shipping address to sign for the package.

If applicable, please consider delivering the package to a business address to ensure someone is available to sign for the package.

We also have the option of delivering the package to a Carrier's store for pickup. Please reach out to us to coordinate.

Carrier will try to delivery a package up to three times before returning the package to us.

See here our shipping policy.

If you miss a delivery and a package gets returned to us we have two options:

1) Reship the package right away: due to the very high cost of shipping and returns, we must charge a re-shipping fee to be determined based on package size and shipping destination.

2) Consolidate the returned package with your next order: this option is free of charge and it's the most popular option.

See here our shipping policy.

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