There’s a state historic park here in California that covers an old town by the name of Columbia. It’s up in gold rush country a couple hours east of San Francisco, up in the foothills where prospectors first struck gold right around the middle of the 18th century. One of the things I most remember about Columbia – other than having first drunk sherry there long before it was legal for me to have done so – was Nelson’s Columbia Candy Kitchen, which was undeniably awesome when I was a wee pup. As I remember it – and this may well have nothing to do with the place as it actually exists – it was a large, cavernous place with wooden floors and a heavy smell in the air of sweet things: candy apples, candy buttons, horehound, taffy, oddball things you don’t see much these days. It smelled of grandmotherly hard candies, of cherries there only to hind the medicine hiding behind the surface. It smelled of abandoned paperboard suitcases, starched shirt collars, and residue scraped off of antimacassars. In short, it smelled… adult.Similarly, this Ridge wine crosses over from simple cherry-candy over to liniment and unguents only to pause for a second and then head right back over to bright cherry-berry fruit. There’s just a hint of a fresh-coconut note there as well, injecting humor into it all; this could pass for a Trader Vic’s concoction even though I doubt it’d taste better in a Tiki mug.It’s a beautiful deep-black crimson; again, it looks like something of another time, less like wine than tonic. There’s also a mesmerizing note of Christmas pudding, of dates and brandy and spice. One sip, though, and you’re transported into something far more outré than imagined: this wine is frickin’ huge, simultaneously fruity, bracing, lush, and yet strangely well within balance, relatively high alcohol and extract notwithstanding. Definitely porty to an extent, the wine drinks relatively straightforwardly until the finish, which is something like prune salt-water taffy (think richly fruited and yet not as sweet as it smells) and lasts for what seems nearly an eternity. All the while, there’s enough tannin here to ground it ever so lightly; at times, it seems like the acidity’s just a wee bit out of balance but that’s a minor quibble. This wine succeeds where so many others fail: it’s rich, complex, affordable, and also very much typical of a place (in this case, the Dry Creek Valley). Yes, California is well known for Napa cabernet sauvignon, but it’s wines like this that I think are our real strength: there are plenty of places that grow good cabernet, but only a handful where Zinfandel shines so beautifully as it does here.Ridge
Price: $30
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail
Monthly Archives: December 2009
Kalari Chardonnay 2008
My second Cowra Chardonnay for this evening; always fun to do some comparative tasting. Against to the just-tasted Cowra Estate, the balance of this Kalari is notably different, tending more towards a generous, peachier style, though still far from the sort of peaches and cream buxomness of old school, now-maligned Chardonnays.
Kalari
Price: $A17
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample
Cowra Estate Chardonnay 2008
Australia’s oldest Chardonnay vineyard – so proclaims the label, even though an establishment date of 1973 reveals the relative youth of this variety’s presence on the local wine scene. I’ve got a couple of Cowra Chardonnays on the table this evening, both reasonably priced (as a lot of Cowra wines appear to be).
Cowra Estate
Price: $A18
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample
Shaw Laughter Series Riesling 2009
One of the great things about Riesling is the high quality frequently obtainable at lower price points. Unlike with, say, Pinot Noir, a $15 RRP doesn’t automatically equal diminished expectations. Indeed, I’ve had some cracking Rieslings over the years that have come in well under the $15 mark. All of which is to suggest my approach to this wine is not at all one of patient generosity or pre-emptive forgiveness.
Shaw Vineyard Estate
Price: $A15
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample