TN: Eberle Zin PasoRobles '89...(short/boring)

WINE TALK
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Tried this last night & was pleasantly surprised:

  1. Eberle Zin PasoRobles (14.8%) 1989: Med.color w/ light bricking; rather pencilly/cedary/old Zin/pungent some spicy/raspberry/blackberry/Zin light earthy/dusty/OV/smokey complex interesting oldZin nose w/o the usual PR/jammy character; soft rather cedary/pencilly/oldZin/smokey/pungent light raspberry/blackberry/Zin flavor w/ light/dried out/astringent tannins; med.long quite cedary/pencilly/oldZin/pungent slight raspberry/Zin/blackberry finish w/ light/astringent tannins; not your usual PR jammy Zin; still has a good grip on life amd shows some raspberry fruit, but headed downhill.

A wee BloodyPulpit:

  1. After GaryEberle left EstrellaRiver, he moved down the road to start his Cabernet effort under his own label in the early '80’s. This was, I believe, his first Zin under the Eberle label. The grapes came from RichardSauret vnyd and, maybe, the Belli-Sauret vnyd; though it was not labeled as such. And I recall tha alcohol was well over the stated 14.8%. I recall one wine writer praised it for its restraint and modest alcohol level.
    It was made in a small amount. I first tasted it up at the Aspen F&W Festival and was blown away by it. I asked Gary if we could order some (this was before we had direct shipping in NM), he waffled a bit, and then said “Sure”. I put together an order for some 12-13 cases w/ my group, cleared it w/ a local retailer w/ a very modest markup, and it was dutifully shipped to the distributor. However, knowing she had something really special, she didn’t feel LosAlamos should get the entire shipment. She sent one case to my retailer and then decided to parcel the rest of it out to other retailers around the state and let me know if I wanted it, I’d have to track it down. So I took my one case from my retailer, told him to cancel the rest of my order, and blew off the remaining 12 cs for my group. Alas, it was an unknown Zin and it languished in said distributors warehouse for several yrs until they had to blow it out at cost.
    I have always liked Gary’s Zins from RichardSauret’s vnyd. Though they could be on the alcoholic side, they never displayed the overripe/jammy character that PR Zins can show and always had a bright raspberry fruitiness to them.
    Nice trip down memory lane here w/ this wine.
    Tom
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Another great note Tom - if I remember right, '89 was a horrible vintage in Napa & Sonoma, but I don’t remember if Paso had the same bad luck. I loved Gary’s wines back then and remember these wines well - his '84 Cabernet was one of my all time favorite wines from Paso Robles -

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Yup, Gary, like TablasCreek, has always had a lighter hand in his winemaking than other Paso winemakers. I don’t think
Gary could make a Syrah like Saxum or Denner if he tried.

I remember well when I first tasted his '76 Syrah at EstrellaRiver around '78, from barrel. It had a beautiful ethereal strawberry/Syrah/floral fragrance (a characteristic
I find in Estrella clone Syrah), not too unlike CoteRotie (but w/o the roasted character), that made me think “Damn…Syrah does have a future
in Calif”. Up until then, the only Calif Syrah was the Phelps, made by WalterShug, that was…well…not very good.
And his Barbera, from NormanVnyd, was also quite lovely.
Tom