I know the “expected” wine drinker pattern is to “progress” from “childish” wines like Zinfandel to “cultured” wines like … you know, Bordeaux and Burgundy. You know the story … "when I was young and foolish I dabbled in those coarse CA wines, but now that I’m a worldly sophisticate … "
Clearly, I’m retarded. The more wine I drink, the more I like Zinfandel and the less regard I have for that French stuff.
Interesting that there seems to be something of a resurgence in Zin interest. Not from pimply-faced teenagers, but from producers such as Carole Meredith and Tom Dehlinger who have entered (Carol) or re-entered (Tom) the old vine Zin fray.
There is a new old vine Zin maker of note in the arena, one Morgan Twain-Peterson. The son of Joel Peterson (Ravenswood), this guy’s fanaticism for old-vine heritage vineyards is like Mike Officer on steroids. I haven’t tasted his wines yet, but have already placed an order on faith. If there are other old-vine freaks out there, check out this website: http://www.bedrockwineco.com/
Zin is still one of my favorites. Always has been…always will be.
The stuff coming out of Bedrock is absolutely first rate. Not to be missed. This yr, MikeOfficer/Carlisle
took some of those Bedrock grapes. Stay tuned.
The Bedrock Semillon is one of the finest expressions of that variety, other than that e’kemmy stuff.
Tom
What is wrong with liking Zinfandel? Sure, I drink quite a lot of ‘Oooh fancy!’ European wines, but there is great pleasure in popping a bottle of heroic Zinfandel. Sometimes you need some heroism in your wines. Lots of producers have tickled my fancy with quality Zin, but the winery I keep coming back to is Ridge. I have so many many good experiences with their wines, but the memory that I treasure is when someone opened an eleven year old bottle of Geyserville 1988. It had all the lovely, expressive fruit one wants from Zin, but had become soft, scented and super-charming. Lovely stuff. Californian Zinfandel is a unique, regional wine style and should be celebrated.
I need to get back into Zin. I get Ridge Three Valleys, but that is a blend. Back “in the day” Montelena and Grgich (gee what a coinkydink) made some 100% pure nice juice. I even remember some Charbono from Franciscan in the mid-80’s.
So, who is making the good juice (no blend or less than 10% blend) these days.
Some of my favorite Zins:
Ridge Nervo, Ridge Oltranti (formerly Mazzoni), Rafanelli, Kokomo Mounts, Rosenblum St. Peters, Preston.
And those are just the ones grown within ten miles of my home.
Timely thread as we had a 2007 Carlisle Sonoma Coast Zin (Screw Closure) last night. Very good bottle, but it had a sort of syrah aspect to it. Not a huge jammy wine like zin can be, but rather it was meaty, gamey and smokey…I dunno.
Thanks for the welcome, Philip, I think I will enjoy contributing here.
Bob, it must have been about 15 years ago that I last had a bottle of Charbono, from Duxoup; I rather liked it. Ah happy memories… they so often seem to include wine… I second your call for suggestions of producers we should search out.
Not to be a nit-picker, Bill, but that would be County.
Liked your avatars much better when they featured LeMay/Teller/Bethe/Einstein/Oppenheimer/Szilard/Fermi and the rest of them boys.
Don’t recognize this guy you have now. Probably doesn’t know much nuclear physics is my guess.
Tom
The guy in the avatar is Sadat X and I would venture he knows about zero in the field of nuclear physics or weapon design. He is however a pretty funny guy that reviews wines on Youtube.
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