Browse Tag

zinfandel

…r and dancer

Dashe 1999 Zinfandel Todd Brothers Ranch (Alexander Valley) – 15%. Extremely oaky, in the soupy vanilla/milk chocolate/coconut fashion of a young zin in the Ridge mold, and with few other signs that the wine has aged at all…other than a noticeable reduction in what was its youthful tannin. This clearly needs more time, but watch that lingering wood. (1/10)

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)

Marinovich

Dashe 1998 Zinfandel Todd Brothers Ranch (Alexander Valley) – 14.5%. Tiring, and though it still clings to remnants of its dusty, dark fruit days, those days are firmly in the past. It’s not yet in an imbalanced stage, in which the structure overwhelms the remnants, but it’s getting there. (12/09)

7×4

[label]Hendry 2005 Zinfandel Block 28 (Napa Valley) – 15.2%. To me, Hendry is an underrated producer. Heck, I even like their chardonnay. Mitigating against that, at least for my cellar, is that their prices are…well, they’re low for Napa, but aggressive in any wider context. That’s one thing when discussing the cabernet, quite another when looking at the zinfandels, which are reliably high-quality but priced as if they’re at the pinnacle, which they’re not. Here’s a wine with concentrated wild-berry fruit (blackberry, olallieberry, perhaps even some dark, exotic plum), excellent structure, and obvious aging potential. The finish is medium-length but vibrant throughout. I just wish it was a little cheaper. (9/09)

Amador, not a bricklayer

Easton 2006 Zinfandel (Amador County) – 14.5%. Leans more to the blueberry and plum side than is typical for Amador zin…there’s not quite so much of the thorny, wild-vine iconoclasm as there has been in other vintages. Perhaps this is what leaves the tannin and acidity a little more exposed, as well. Some time (not a lot) might help knit these elements. Not a bad wine, but not the best Easton’s produced. That said, it’s still one of the highest-quality zins to be had at a non-premium price these days, which is saying something at least. (10/09)

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)

Blooming rose

Rosenblum 2006 Zinfandel (North Coast) – 14.9%. Sticky dark-berried fruit with little in the way of structure or life. It’s a decent chug, and it does taste like zinfandel, but otherwise there doesn’t seem to be much point to it. (8/09)

Faithfully

[vineyard]Ridge 1999 Geyserville (Sonoma County) – 14.8%. Folks on ye olde internete keep insisting this is at peak, or even on the decline. They’re out of their minds. No, it’s not fully primary anymore, dominated by coconutty oak and jellied fruit. A lot of the former has integrated, exchanging coconut for vanilla, and the latter has definitely deepened to meld more closely with the wine’s darker, black-berried muscularity, but almost all of the aromatic and textural development that makes aging Geyserville so worthwhile has yet to arrive, and there’s rather a surplus of structure at the moment as well. That said, the time at which it would be worth checking in – given sufficient quantities – isn’t far off. Maybe another four or five years? And then holding for…well, I’d guess a long time, at various points along which curve it will be among the great successes of latter-period Ridge Geyserville. (7/09)

Duke

Wellington 2004 Zinfandel (Sonoma Valley) – 14.8%. Dark fruit infused with dark chocolate and coconut oak; as basic a recipe for zin as has ever been attempted. As such, it goes down easy and in utter disinterest. (6/09)

Tulocays walk into a bar…

[logo]Tulocay 2001 Zinfandel (Amador County) – Jeez, this is good. Full-throated black fruit, all wild vines and tangled pulp, without being over the top or tricked-up in any way. There’s tannin and acidity in the background, both lesser components but providing sufficient support for all else. Evidence suggests this will continue to age and develop for some time, with the current hints of black pepper fanning out into a wider mélange of spices and soil characteristics. (5/09)