Browse Tag

dry creek valley

Zindanges tardives

[vineyard]Dashe 2007 “Late Harvest” Zinfandel (Dry Creek Valley) – From 375 ml, 14.1% alcohol, 9% residual sugar by weight. Called by someone I know “the worst wine he’s had all year,” or something along those lines. I don’t see it. It tastes like classic late-harvest zin to me. True, it screeches with volatile acidity, and that’s normally enough to lead to the latter of the fight/flight reaction in me, but the concentrated, sticky fruit (berries of all shapes and hues) seems to somehow lighten as it moves past its fermentably-dry stage. It’s…cute. (1/10)

Dry, dry again

[vineyard]Dashe 1999 Zinfandel (Dry Creek Valley) – 14.5%. By all rights, one should be drinking the site-designated Dashe zinfandels now, and this one should be a memory. I can’t speak to the “better” wines, but I can say that – at least based on this bottle – there’s no real hurry to ferret out the stragglers from this stock. It shows a lot of the really appealing signs of maturing zin, like tiny wild berries bearing a significant dust component, gentle coffee aromas, and a dark, organic earthiness; fans of older Ridge will recognize much here, and I’d say that even were there no connection between the two wineries. But there’s also still-evolving structure, and some unquestionable tightness to the wine’s core. There’s no harm in drinking it, for certain, but I’m still not sure it’s done with its journey. A really good wine, well-rewarding its time in the cellar. (10/09)

Dashe 2006 Zinfandel (Dry Creek Valley) – 14.5%. Big, for sure, with zingy and somewhat elbowy smallberry fruit of a mildly explosive nature, black-peppered earth, and good structure. One oddity: after about an hour, the wine essentially disappears, leaving a hollow cylinder of structure behind. But up to that point, it’s entirely delish. (8/09)

Riding the Bench

[vat]Ridge 2006 Zinfandel East Bench (Dry Creek Valley) – 14.9%. Pure essence of Dry Creek – just like the text on the label promises – and quite wonderfully restrained in its post-harvest packaging. Wild, vine-y berries, twisted and gnarled, swirl on the palate. There’s a very light bit of coconut, but this wine is mostly about its fruit, which is concentrated but not overly intense. There’s light but balanced structure for medium-term ageability. Delicious. (12/08)

Up the creek

[squirrel]Nalle 2004 Zinfandel (Dry Creek Valley) – 13.9%. A bit more advanced than I’d have expected – just a bit, though – with some of the very pleasant wild-berry fruit (tending more towards red than blue, purple, or black) having yielded to spice and a wavy, still-indistinct earthiness. But it’s such an easygoing pleasure to drink. (9/08)

Lytton hüs

[tasting room]Ridge 1998 Lytton Springs (Dry Creek Valley) – 14.3%. Pretty much ready, with the primary, oak-dominated “perfume” still present, yet the red and black berries and plums softened and lush with spice in the manner of a well-aged Lytton. Drink it now, while waiting for more structured and muscular vintages to reach maturity. (8/08)

Trout face mask

Quivira “Steelhead” 2006 Zinfandel (Dry Creek Valley) – 13.8%. Wan and almost flavorless, with no more than a hint of blue-black fruit. A pretty pathetic effort. Not corked. Just lousy. (7/08)

How Dry is my Valley?

[vines]Nalle 2004 Zinfandel (Dry Creek Valley) – Juicy red fruit with a great deal of refreshing acidity, like a series of berries bursting with early-summer crispness. The wine hints at fruity exotica, but this proves to be a feint, and the only other noticeable aroma is a faint dusting of coconut. This wine seems unusually advanced for its age, in that the edges seem to have eroded away, leaving a naked core of sharp fruit, but that could just be Nalle going through its usual aging curve. Thanks to the acid, it’s very, very good with food. (12/07)

True Grist

[vineyard]Bradford Mountain 2003 Zinfandel Grist (Dry Creek Valley) – Very concentrated, perhaps overly so…it’s not big (for a zin), it’s just sort of a neutron star of a wine, with everything in a tiny little volume of gravitational singularity. There’s a good deal of dark, toasty oak spice, but that too is drawn inward. For all this, it manages to be a pleasant drink, but it needs the right food (something equally concentrated) to avoid being somewhat like a spirituous reduction of zinfandel. (11/07)

Lytton Hewitt

[map]Ridge 1998 Lytton Springs (Dry Creek Valley) – Draper’s note suggests to drink this nowish, and I think he’s right, though the spicy coconut oak hasn’t faded as much as one might like in a “mature” Lytton Springs. The fruit is clearly drying up, and while it’s still a warm and tasty festival of dark berries, the cracks and seams are unquestionably showing. (11/07)