It’s been a long time since I’ve tasted one, but I was making a zesty meatball sauce tonight, and decided to open a stray The Prisoner I had picked up. For those who have not seen/had one, the front label just has a picture – there is no indication of what it is, where its from, or the year. Only on the back label does it reveal that it’s a 2019 The Prisoner ‘red wine’ [California] along with its ample 15.5% abv. These tend to run $50ish at retail - astonishingly - and are basically ‘loud steakhouse’ gluggers. I had assumed this would be mostly zinfandel, but I pulled out a Riedel Burgundy, Riedel Bordeaux, and Gabriel StandArt to see what would suit it best.
Despite the elegance a Burgundian stem should accentuate, The Prisoner came across hot and spirity in the (far left) bowl. I had made sure to keep this quite cold, but this isn’t a good medium for it. Perhaps Maximilien will develop ‘California Red Blend’ optimized crystal for this category?
From the Riedel Bordeaux (far right) - which had the greatest distance from nose to the bottom - the figgy / Fig Newton aspects came through strongest. Also the fleshy/flabby feel in the mouth was higher here. I suppose this is probably an ok choice, if one doesn’t have a syrah type of Rhone glass. I don’t drink much (varietal) Zinfandel but when doing so would likely pour it in one of these, so a reasonable choice.
From the GG stem, I found it to be jammy and Junior Mint inflected; without researching I felt it tasted like a zinfandel/malbec blend. The glass seemed to accentuate the viscosity, but helped reduce the perceived heat. After sniffing and swirling across all the stems, I think this was the best vehicle for the high residual sugar, high alcohol blend. Overall, beyond the stemware, the wine is kryptonite for the stereotypical AFWE / WB palate - jammy, gooey, hot, sweet etc. It needs to be kept cool, and perhaps aired out too, but I can see how it would satisfy a swath of consumers. I think a decent proxy for whether one might like it would be if they favor KC Masterpiece glazed ribs. The cork is very short, by the way. I’d give this a B- on my card, but it’s not flawed nor undrinkable; still I can wait another decade before having another glass, but I’ll test it out of a red Solo cup at a BBQ.
My better half suggests that next time I freeze the meatballs before browning them, so they keep proper spheres. There was a lot of deformation with this batch. Also, for the sauce I tried Bianco DiNapoli canned tomatoes for the first time and can attest that brand is excellent. Sadly, not carried at my normal markets, but perhaps worth the effort to stock up the pantry when I am passing by a Nugget Market. (Also there was no cornmeal involved - I had just left the container on the counter)
