In 1942, the first rodeo and horse racing event was held in Clements, California, and it was a big event with over 1,500 people gathering to watch. The Stampede vineyard is next to the venue. Stampede means rodeo in California. The zinfandel trees planted in Stampede Vineyard in the 1920s are still rooted to this day. The vineyard is located in the Clements Hills AVA, located in the southeastern part of Lodi AVA, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The soil is weathered granite, and looking down the hill, you can see the ancient seabed and the site of the rodeo next to each other. The vineyard is cultivated by Jeff Perlegos and his son John, and it was Morgan Twain Peter of Bedrock Wine Co. who introduced them to this vineyard.
The winery is Morgan Twain-Peterson. The model and inspiration for this Zinfandel is the style of Paul Draper of Ridge Vineyards, one of the greatest influences in the history of California wine. By making good use of field blends and old vines, Paul has created a style of Zinfandel that is "elegant and well-balanced, typical of California." The wine is fermented in an open-top vineyard using indigenous yeasts, with the stems and whole bunches separated. After 16 months of aging in old barrels, it was bottled unfiltered and unfined. Alex Pitts, who was an assistant winemaker for the Scholium Project, a pioneer of the California nature movement, became independent and teamed up with Martin Winter, who studied winemaking at Leo Steen and was a sommelier at the three-star Michelin restaurant Meadowood in Napa. In 2019, they were selected as Winemakers to Watch by the San Francisco Chronicle, a national newspaper in the United States, and are the most dynamic young duo right now. Their motto is to make high-quality, unique, "California-like" wines while minimizing human intervention and striving to bring out the individuality of the vineyards to the fullest. Using their own network, they find organically grown, as well as old rooted vines and irrigated vineyards that have not yet been noticed, and brew using only indigenous yeasts to firmly reflect the flavor and individuality of the grape varieties in the wine. "Maître de Chai" is a French word (mainly Bordeaux) that means winemaker. Now they are independent and can make a living just by managing their own winery, but when they first started "Maître de Chai", both of them worked as winemakers and assistants at other wineries. The brand name expresses their gratitude to their mentor who gave them the opportunity to work in the cellar and shared his knowledge of winemaking and cultivation with them, which is why they are who they are today. In other words, "Maître de Chai" is the job title that led Alex and Martin to enter the wine industry, and it is their origin. The label features an illustration drawn in 1883, showing Libertas, the Statue of Liberty in Roman mythology, and a grizzly bear, the symbol of California, making a toast. California adopted the grizzly bear as its state flag in 1911, so this picture was drawn before that. The side of the barrel depicts a sailing ship and a worker holding a hoe that reached the American West Coast after a long journey during the Gold Rush (1848). The original illustration had the word "Eureka" written on the side of the barrel, meaning "Found!", and the sides of the wooden wine crate had "Mission," "Pineau," "Riesling," and "Zinfandel" written on the sides, respectively. However, the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau did not approve the designs as they were, so the word "Eureka" was removed and the side of the wooden crate now lists the grape varieties used in the wine inside.