Stagiaire is the négociant label of Brent Mayeaux, a talented natural winemaker based in San Francisco who actually lives on Treasure Island, which, if you know anything about SF, is a profoundly weird place. This is Brent's first Zinfandel he's bottled since around 2018, from a hillside vineyard site in Mendocino on that overlooks a Buddhist monastery (Cali weirds). Old vines, planted in the 1970's, dry-farmed. Brent did this wine with whole cluster fruit macerated in direct press juice, to express stems and ripeness and complexity, but also to retain the freshness of the direct juice. Aged in barrel, tastes like strawberry-watermelon candy with mulled wine spices. Medium-weight, a beautiful entry into the new world of what Cali Zinfandel can be.