Carlisle haas been posting drinking windows on their website for years, and Bedrock just recently started doing the same. Some might think those drinking windows are too conservative, but I put a lot of stock in the predictions of the winemaker. On the other hand, they might be intentionally conservative because they don’t want to be blamed when your bottle goes around the bend.
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Bingo, Anton. The SutterHomes were quite good (and cheap) up until about the '76 vintage. Then they went downhill fast as the WhiteZinfandel tail began to wag the Zinfandel dog. They put a lot of them up in mags. Those Zins were from the DeaverVnyd, a great OV Vnyd.
Tom
Williams Selyem zins also age very well. I’ve had some gorgeous 1990-1993 zins of theirs in recent years.
@Blake_Brown can attest to how those age.
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I like their Zinfandels, but they’re crazy expensive and ridiculously overpriced (would rather much prefer Carlisle or Once & Future Wine for about half the price).
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The only comment I’d add is that for context Mike Officer has said (at least in the past) that he favors his zin young and I think his drinking windows reflect that. In my opinion they can age much longer but evolve vis a vis my comment upthread.
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I brought a 1981 Zin to a tasting group a couple weeks ago that was still drinking great. Right before the pandemic we opened a 1975 Harbor Zin and it was still full of life also. Zinfandel can age really well in my opinion but it’s a different wine in it’s aged form. My favorites when aged tend to be ones that were a bit more rustic in the winemaking style.
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I can’t speak for the WS Zins of the last 25 years or so, but I can attest to those in the late 80s and early 90s as being stupendous and a great value in recent auctions.
They’re actually mellow and super fruity and tasty while being in ideal balance.
Should you or anyone have some, they do need to be stood up for a day and then decanted as there is a bit of sediment.
FWIIW, that holds true for Zins made by Burt’s daughter, Margi, as released in her label, Brogan Cellars AND Burt’s son, Fred, as released in his label, Seven Lions.
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+1 on Brogan Cellars, I remember having some great wines from them.
Sky
Ravenswood
Ridge
I’m betting Bedrock is the next generation of these Zins that can age. Personally, I think Morgan’s Zins and field blends are of the stuff that people will be talking about for 25, 50 or more years. I think he is Mondavi level in influence with what he is doing to preserve the history of California field blends. Over the past year, I’ve had a few bedrocks that are over 10 years of age, and some of them are just hitting their stride. I think @Rich_Brown probably has the most insight here on the ability of bedrock to age in the comparison to its peer group, like sky and Ridge
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Oh, speaking of Mondavi, A couple of years ago I showed up to a dinner at Bern’s probably half an hour early, went to the bar to go try some of their by the glass specials, and snagged a 1979 Mondavi Zin for like $12. It was jaw-dropping really good. I sat there with that stupid, happy face like Patrick from SpongeBob.
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Opened a ‘97 Ravenswood Monte Rosso Zinfandel a little over a month ago. It had aged perfectly with primary fruit still present. The acidity and soft, fine tannins were beautiful and the wine was a real pleasure to drink.
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I hear what you are all saying, and you’re not wrong, but for me the beauty of Zinfandel is the purity and uniqueness of the fruit in its youth. I still recall fondly my first zin, a 1989 Quivira Dry Creek opened shortly after purchase and the blackcurrant component I hadn’t tasted in any other wine up to that point.
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For me, it is both. I love it young and old.
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Somewhere around ‘76/77, I stopped at a wine store to bring a bottle to an Italian dinner with friends. Looking in the Italian section, they seemed weird and expensive for a college kid with only Boones Farm experience. Clerk suggested a Lytton Springs zin that was all zinberry fruit with a little spicy note. Mind (and wallet) blown.
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My aha moment came in the early 90s. I had just started buying wine, and I subscribed to Robert Parker. He reviewed the 1991 Dry Creek Vineyard Zinfandel Old Vines at 91 points. The price was $12. I bought four cases.
I gave a bottle to my boss, who got up from his dinner table to call me, and get me up from my dinner table, to tell me it was the best bottlle of red wine he had ever tasted. I felt much the same way. The next day, I took him another.
Today, thirty years later, I have 450 bottles of Zinfandel in my basement, down from a high of 600 bottles.
I never looked back.
Phil Jones
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This is of course anecdotal, but I’ve had the Ridge Park-Muscatine side by side with the Ridge Monte Bello of the same vintage on two occasions over the last year (1984 and 1990 vintages), and the Park-Muscatine outshined the Monte Bello on both occasions. I also opened an '84 Storybook Mountain Zinfandel Reserve with some wine friends last year, and it was the wine of the night in a lineup of stars.
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Thank you for your post!..there is a 1985 Storybook Reserve somewhere in my cellar that I think about every couple years and then it fades out of memory. Going to have to pull it out before the temps raise too much! Sounds like a wine for the last of cool days.
Have many older Zinfandels (Amador County) from the mid-late 90’s in my cellar. Had a 1998 Karly (Warrior Fires) a month or so back and was amazed by the amount of dark fruit still showing.
Wines bottled as Zinfandel are massively diverse and are difficult to ‘nutshell.’ Hence, the confusion about ‘what is Zinfandel, really?’ Some are made to be at their best young, while others have varied degrees of latency and aging potential (not just to ‘hold up’, but to actually gain interesting notes over time).
Aging ability (which I think is primarily a function of oxygen appetite) is strongly tied to style, and these stylistic components act independently. 1. Ripeness level can have an inverse effect on both pH (affecting rate of oxidative reactions), and oxygen appetite which is a huge factor in ability to age gracefully. 2. Inclusion of higher tannin (and/or lower pH) varieties such as are found in many field blends can add a significant oxygen appetite and slower oxidative rates to the blend due to lower pH. 3. Reductive vs oxidative winemaking (racking frequently, lees contact, etc.) can preserve or squander that oxygen appetite.
F
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Huge Ridge fan here, as theyre my local benchmark winery. With so many other Ridge fans here, ive had countless oddball Zins of theirs, plus multiple verticals of Geyserville and Lytton Springs, and single verticals of others. Yes, they reliably age very well.
Separately, one esteemed older friend had an old Zin themed party, that was basically “bring your best, oldest bottle.” I think i mentioned this on here recently, but we had at least one from every decade, starting with the '35 Simi. Most were '60s and '70s. One noob brought an '82 
No repeat producers. Just a couple bottles were tired, the rest vibrant and very good, a few stunning.
At Harrington we sourced Zeni Ranch in the Mendocino Highlands for a couple vintages. I saw Ridge had sourced that in the '70s, but have never seen a bottle. There was at least one SVD. i asked Paul about it and he went on to talk about how he loved sourcing from the Mendocino Highlands growers and what characters they were. Bryan Harrington had met George Zeni and been to the place before he became a winemaker, and was charmed. Otherwise, hed probably never had made a commercial Zin. Back to the topic, i found several vintages of Edmeades Zeni Ranch Zin ('80s & '90s). I’d heard a little not too positive about their wines, but had to try, anyway. I’m guessing they were “big” young, but what I’ve opened have been fantastic. They sourced from a couple other vineyards there. Worth taking a flyer if you see any on winebid for cheap.
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Hmm, I have a 1973 V Sattui Dickerson Vineyard Zin. Fill is bottom neck. Will pop soon and post notes.
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