Tag Archives: Zinfandel

Sandstone Cellars III 2006

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A blend of 52% Mourvèdre, 21% Primitivo, 16% Grenache, 10% Touriga and 1% Tempranillo. Chris has previously written about this wine, and his note strikes me as both an accurate representation of the wine and a prescient expression of the excitement that I’m feeling as I work my way through Texas Hill Country. Of all the Sandstone Cellars wines I’ve so far tasted (and there have been a few), this presents perhaps the most distinctive flavour profile, a fact for which its most important constituents (Mourvèdre and Primitivo) must be responsible.

At first taste, this is more Zinfandel than anything else: it has a liqueurous spiciness I associate with the variety, as well as characteristic power and density. It throws such a wide range of aromas, though, so many of which are dustier, darker and more sinister, that Mourvèdre’s influence becomes more and more clear. Notes of camphor, aniseed, dark fruit and spice all intermingle, as well as a leathery note that is surely part bottle age. No shortage of complexity, then, in this highly distinctive aroma profile.

The palate is amazingly dense and impactful, yet never rises above being medium bodied. This both strikes me as very Texan and very new; indeed, I can’t think of too many wines I’ve tasted that house this particular set of muscular, dark flavours within such an elegant frame. The flavour, in fact, suggests port at times, perhaps due to the Touriga. Tannins are chunky and thick when they appear, which they do quite far back in the wine’s line.

This is elegant, delicious, distinctive and ageing gracefully. More than all that, though, it’s a milestone in the invention of Texas, Texas Hill Country and Mason County wine.

Note: I am currently an intern with Don Pullum, the maker of this wine.

Sandstone Cellars
Price: $40
Closure: Cork
Source: Sample

Coturri Freiburg Vineyard Zinfandel 2008

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Natural winemaking in Sonoma County pretty much starts and ends with Coturri. In a region full of squeaky clean, commercially styled wines, Tony Coturri’s laissez-faire approach in the winery comes as a breath of fresh air. I was lucky enough to spend an afternoon with Tony recently, where we discussed his approach, heritage Sonoma wine styles and much else besides. His way with Zinfandel is especially successful, I think. He allows the wine to ferment wild and, often, this results in an amount of residual sugar once fermentation is complete. He feels this is the manner in which Zinfandel was once made in the region and, despite it being noticeably sweet on the mid-palate, considers it a good food wine.

I tend to agree and, in this, his Zinfandels remind me of Australian Shiraz VP, which I’ve always thought is a great wine with savoury food (and not just chocolate). Like a good Shiraz VP, this is extremely aromatic. The nose is rich, spiced and fruitcake-like, screaming of Zinfandel all the way. Its complexity is heady, with interesting biscuity notes and some greenness too, which is typical of this unevenly ripening variety. This isn’t a fresh fruit style. Rather, its aromas remind me of Old World styles that involve extended barrel maturation, in that their focus is on flavours that show some development.

The palate is a striking mixture of off-dry fruit and biscuity flavours, its line seeming sweet before finishing clean and dry. Structure is beautifully balanced, especially acid, while tannins are dusty and firm enough to prevent the wine’s flavours from cloying. It has power and richness and, like a German Riesling, seems to magically balance its residual sweetness with just the right amount of structure.

A strikingly unusual wine style, this is quite delicious and calls out for a big hunk of hard cheese and sourdough bread.

Coturri Winery
Price: $NA (not yet released)
Closure: Cork
Source: Sample

Sandstone Cellars III

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First off, allow me to note that I did not pay full retail for this wine. A couple of years ago, I had to travel to San Angelo, Texas to do some work at a local hospital. It was cheaper to fly to Austin and drive, so I did; I passed Sandstone Cellars on the way over to San Angelo, thought it looked kinda interesting, got my work done there, and stopped in on the way back. I thought the wine was damned good and bought a bottle; leaving Mason, the town where the winery’s located, I checked my email and saw that they’d sent an email a few hours earlier, so I made a U-turn and headed back to the winery to chat a bit more. They offered the bottle at half price; I met them half way, and that’s the story here. So: I paid $30, which – now that I’ve finally opened the bottle – feels like I ripped them off for $10.

Right. First time I’ve had this wine, second Sandstone Cellars wine I’ve ever tasted. What’s it like?The first impression I get is of whatever you call the tea leaf equivalent of coffee grounds. If you make a pot of tea – and I’m thinking something malty like, say, Assam – and leave the used tea leaves aside, they tend to smell like this, especially if (say) someone’s made lavender Earl Grey out of them; think vanilla, orange blossoms, just a touch of smoke and cedary wood. It’s lovely, and it doesn’t remind me of anywhere else I can think of. Nice to see that the second bottle I’ve had from Mason County is as idiosyncratic as the first: both have been of uniformly high quality, and it seems that Don Pullum, the winemaker (do check out his Twitter feed if you haven’t), is definitely onto something here.

And how does it taste? First off, it’s tannic (still). Firm, dusty, blocky tannins a go go. It’s also nicely acidic; the overall mouthfeel doesn’t approach the silky smooth California profile I’m used to (think higher alcohol and a bit of residual sugar). Fruit’s here too, thankfully: more than anything, I taste Zinfandel, but the label tells me we’re mostly working with Mataro here; I don’t sense the Mataro particularly save for the smoky-floral notes on the nose. To me, this wine shows a real tension between the fruit, tannin, and acidity; although there’s plenty to love about the vanillin, cherry-blackberry fruit, it’s slightly attenuated by the acidity (think food wine). That being said, part of what makes this wine such a pleasure is its tension: it’s the vinuous equivalent of a tritone.

The finish… yes, Dorothy, there is a finish, and it’s very Bach: four part harmony all the way down. Sweet fruit, nervy acidity, lingering tannins, and spice, not staying in any one key too long before nervously jumping to the next.Sitting here thinking about this wine (and the people that made it), I find myself wondering if there’s a place in most folks’ wine cellars for this kind of thing. Looking at CellarTracker, for example, I see that there’s less than a dozen bottles of every wine they make represented on the Internet. They don’t ship to California, I couldn’t find a bottle in Dallas to save my life last year, and this kinda bothers me. Look, I know I’m something of a hipster when it comes to wine: I prefer the experimental over the tried-and-true, I’m always up for things I haven’t heard of from places I can’t pronounce, and novelty is more interesting to me than safety. Part of this is of course financial: unlike my Dad, I grew up in a world where first growth Bordeaux costs as much as a month’s rent. Much of my drinking has necessarily been local or obscure: if you can’t afford Pingus, might as well make the best of Bierzo.

Even more: as a Californian, I’ve always been especially open to things that are (strictly speaking) unique to my region and my cultural traditions. Field blends (‘mixed blacks’) for example: drinking something like that is a tangible link to the past I share with everyone else in this state, and I honestly believe that’s there no reason why that shouldn’t stand tall compared to other countries’ traditions (be it Hunter semillon or autochtonous Georgian grapes fermented in clay amphorae). And when I come across something like this wine, I really do get excited at the possibility that someone, a pioneer, may be discovering (crafting?) something new, something specifically Texan, something that a hundred years from now will be as well known as, say, California Zinfandel, something that’s universally recognized as Texan.If so, this a damn good start.

Sandstone Cellars
Price: $40
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Ridge Lytton Springs 2005

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Wine lovers are often bargain hunters too, perhaps by necessity. Back in 2002, Chris and I happened to be in the same city at the same time (Sydney), and experienced the joy of locating, then purchasing, an entire stash of 1994 Ridge Geyserville from a little bottle shop in Chinatown. To find such a wine was grand enough, but the proprietors of the bottle shop in which it lay clearly had no idea what it was, and were happy to sell us the lot for (from memory) about ten dollars a bottle.

Of course, wines of such dodgy provenance often prove disappointing, let alone ones made of a grape (Zinfandel) whose ability to age is contested. But the first bottle we opened that night — before our most memorable dinner — was good, and so was every bottle tasted thereafter. I’ve long finished my half of the stash, but the memory of both the find and the consumption remain vivid. Chris regularly stokes these fond recollections by providing a bottle or two of Ridge wine whenever we meet to drink, so over the years I’ve been lucky enough to taste everything from various Monte Bellos to a spectacular Syrah that gave a bottle of 2001 Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier tasted alongside a run for its money. I remember approaching that Syrah after some initial courses of German Riesling and so on; we were at that point in a grand dinner where the company, food and alcohol begin to meld into a single warm sensation. I smelled it once, not knowing what to expect, and was completely unable to control a spontaneous éclat of laughter. It was so wonderful.

All of which makes it difficult for me to write objectively about Ridge wines. In a sense, though, to approach this wine through a lens of dispassionate evaluation is to miss both what it means to me and what it represents, stylistically. Although I had never tasted this particular vintage before last night, the warm prickliness of its aroma was immediately transportative. To me, this smells of Californian wine, and for that alone I grant it enormous value. Each time I taste a Zinfandel-based wine, in particular those by Ridge, I love the difference of its flavour profile. Here, there’s intense spice and fruit cake, abundant chocolate, coconut and cherries. It’s as if someone stuffed a Cherry Ripe into the ripest, richest Christmas cake imaginable. Hence, it’s not an elegant wine in either character or footprint, and I love that it presents its notes with such blustery confidence.

The palate rebalances the aroma’s intense spice by providing a core of sweet, bright red fruit that cools the flavour profile. Entry is crisp and immediate, starting dark but quickly brightening to show a mix of red and black fruits. These fruits are juicy and perfectly ripened and provide much of the pleasure of eating freshly picked berries. Swirling all around this core are warm, rich spice notes, well-balanced mocha oak and a streak of bright orange juice. The finish leaves one with a lingering impression of the purest, sweetest fruit. Structurally, this is quite spectacular, the acid totally integrated and the tannins chewy and sweet. It’s taken a day to really open up, so I’d be leaving further bottles in the cellar for at least two to three more years before retasting.

In a sense, tasting a single wine prompts one to reflect on the entirety of one’s tasting experiences. This is what makes wine a pastime that becomes exponentially richer as the years pass, and also what can magnify the experience of one wine beyond all proportion. Happily, this wine was able to bear the full weight of my memories.

Ridge
Price: £25
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Ridge Pagani Ranch 2003

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It’s a cold, rainy night here in San Diego, so I went for the most alcoholic wine I could find; there are two reasons for this. One, I’m cold and could use some alcoholic heat, and two, after kvetching about the high alcohol content of Mollydooker wines last week, I figured it was time to try another high octane wine from a different winery and see if I can find any reason at all for my dislike of the high alcohol Mollydooker house style. So: here I am.

This wine’s older; the back label suggests holding it until 2010-2011 to allow it to ‘soften,’ and I’ve done that more or less as proscribed. The color doesn’t seem to have faded much, if at all: it’s still that rich, dark, opaque black color I associate with Zinfandel. Just like the Mollydookers, it also has a noticeably clear rim and jambes d’enfer, making its 15.4% alcohol level perfectly clear. Things couldn’t be more clearly different than the Mollydooker wines, though, on the nose.

This doesn’t smell like other wines, not even like other Ridge zinfandels. This takes the whole jammy, Christmas pudding, spice box, Turkish delight aesthetic to overdriven levels. There’s not much by the way of obvious wood; instead, what you get here is extremely ripe fruit. What’s odd, though, is that the alcohol seems to be relatively adroit at keeping itself out of the way enough to smell the wine; you don’t get a snootful of alcoholic vapors, just a twinge. Even so, the second you drink some, bang, there it is: unavoidable alcohol that’s a little bit harsh, obstructing the otherwise clean line here. For all of the delicious, dried fruit, dates and treacle going on here, there’s still a clearly porty aspect you just can’t avoid.

So what’s the deal here? Why does this bother me less than similarly alcoholic syrah and cabernet from Mollydooker? I think it’s simple: zinfandel is more or less an inherently ridiculous grape. It tastes best at higher alcohol levels; it doesn’t really gain a thing when it’s harvested at 13% potential alcohol because the grape just isn’t ripe at those sugar levels. Instead, you have to get it up in the 14s before you can make a palatable wine from it at all. However, cabernet and syrah both do just fine in the 12-14 percent range, and I just don’t see what they gain at higher alcohol levels; I think they begin to lose quite a bit in interest and complexity once you get anywhere past, oh, about 14.5%. When you hit 15, 16, and (God forbid), 16.5% alcohol, a lot of the interesting bits seem to have gone, and the good bits that are left don’t seem to particularly complement the alcohol (in the sense that the overall effect is of a less complex port), unlike zinfandel, whose innate characteristics (think spicy date pudding) do in fact sit will at relatively insane levels of alcohol.

Digression over. Back to this wine: it’s drinking rather beautifully right now and is a fine example of a high alcohol (if not quite late harvest) zinfandel (or, technically, a field blend – there’s alicante bouschet and durif/petite sirah here as well). Age has brought a genteel faded character to the hyperripe fruitfest and given it an earthy, almost cedary edge that’s lovely. If there’s any Old World wine to which I’d compare it, it would be to a 40 year old port; it has definite similarities in terms of complexity, and a lot of the bottom end has fallen out, leaving a melody almost entirely in the treble clef, a wonderful harmony of rich, fruity, aged notes with a nearly sherry-like hint of maderization. Pretty damn good wine, if I say so myself.

Ridge Vineyards
Price: $30
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Ridge Dusi Ranch Zinfandel 2006

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I’m an unabashed fan of Ridge wines, rarely having experienced a disappointing example. Ridge introduced me to the joys of Zinfandel with its Geyserville label, and continues to provide beautiful Californian wine experiences each time I am lucky enough to taste its wines. Sometimes, one connects with a particular producer’s approach beyond all reason; if I overpraise Ridge wines, understand this is as much an emotional response to context and company as to the wines themselves. 

Be that as it may, I defy anyone not to respond positively to the exuberance of this wine’s aroma. It’s powerfully fruity in a way utterly unfamiliar to me, raised as I have been on Australian red wines. There’s rich fruit cake, spice, and an overwhelming sense of completeness that makes this an envelopingly sensual experience. Forget angularity and enjoy the luxe of this wine’s blanket of aromas. 
The palate is surprisingly elegant considering the range of flavours and 15.8% abv. Yes, I consider this wine an elegant, balanced wine, despite its scale and technical measurements, which makes its achievement simply more remarkable. Masses of flavour immediately on entry, slinking to a middle palate awash with fruit cake flavours. Clearly, this isn’t a chiselled wine style, but nor is it formless. In fact, there’s plenty of structure, and my only criticism is that these elements don’t cohere as well as they might. The acidity in particular stands out a bit from the rest of the wine. This isn’t nearly enough to derail my enjoyment, however, so I prefer to focus on the immense generosity here, as well as the unexpected freshness of the flavour profile. Alcohol becomes most evident on the finish, which is noticeable hot.
An astonishing wine in many ways. Wines like this will never be considered great, but in their own way they exemplify the purity of a certain regional style. 

Ridge
Price: $NA
Closure: Cork
Source: Gift

Ridge Zinfandel East Bench 2007

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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

Agent for Change Zinfandel 2006

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Lovely, sweet, fruit-cake rich, with warm cocoa notes and candied fruit peel on the nose, this smells very much like a good, standard quality Paso zin; somehow, however, the alcohol has gone missing alone the way, resulting in a hole in the nose where the painful alcohol hit should’ve been, replaced instead by a label declaring this is only 13.5% abv, making me wonder if someone’s hiding a spinning cone around here or what…Still, what a love nose. Very soft and plush, it reminds me of  cru Beaujolais mixed with Angostura bitters, with slight hard earthy edges pushed up against the sweet red fruits. The palate doesn’t disappoint either, with simple, cheery red fruits ‘n berries served up on a nicely toasty background. Still, though, it seems to lack some of the weight I’d normally associate with zinfandel – or, rather, with higher alcohol levels. It all finishes relatively simply, and it seems like there’s something missing there too – either acidity or alcohol – but still: it’s a minor complaint. On the whole, this is good stuff – especially if you’re not a fan of one-glass-and-you’re-blotto California monster zinfandel. Most of what makes them good is still here, but you could actually consider finishing the bottle with your partner on a school night without worrying about the morning after.Bonus marketing spin: a portion of the sales price of every bottle goes to non-profit organizations of some kind. I’m cynical enough not to particularly care about that – I mean, if I honestly cared, I’d just write a check to the Avon Foundation and go buy a cheap bottle of wine – but honestly, why not? You’re probably not going to find a better Zin for this money, so you might as well go for it.Full disclosure: I received this wine as a press sample.Agent for Change
Price: $14
Closure: Cork
Source: Sample

Sandstone Cellars V

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There’s something to be said for a wine that makes itself smelled even from across the table. I poured a glass of this, sat down at the computer, and at no point forgot that it was there: it positively exudes perfume. The color is remarkable: rich and deep, dark red with a slightly watery rim, at first giving the appearance of an older wine but somehow it’s all very youthful at the same time.

One smell of this and I’m transported: this does not smell like any wine I’ve had before. All kinds of random associations come to mind: the crisp, dry, crinkly skin of fresh tomatillos; dusty corridors in government buildings in distant counties, dessicating in the summer heat; the smell of the upstairs closet with Mom’s college papers, reel-to-reel tapes and all; a warm summer’s night in the house where grew up in the San Joaquin valley, crickets and trains on the night breeze, the warmth never fully gone from the hay bales outside. It’s remarkable.

Trying to think more traditionally about this for a minute, there seems to be a dry, dusty mint or basil note hovering over dry baker’s chocolate on the nose, wet earth, dried meats (not smoked), and (remarkably) something like dried violets. In all honest, I find it absolutely fascinating: so many different smells, such odd suggestions of things that really don’t have tastes or smells. If a mark of a great wine is that it somehow manages to remind you of things in your past that you’ve forgotten, well, then this wine’s a great one.

The first thing that strikes me about this wine in the mouth is the texture: it seems much richer, unctuous, fat, wide than most others do. Taking a minute to experience the physicality of the wine, I sense that it seems to slip away quietly, somehow vanishing towards the middle-back of the mouth while leaving that same impression of fullness behind. There’s good acidity here, which I suppose guarantees the soft disappearance; the tannins are finely checked and leave a lingering sense of elegance.

As far as the flavor of the thing goes, it again doesn’t really taste like any other wines I know. There are fleeting hints of typical syrah and zinfandel – snatches of deep, plummy fruit and smoky bacon fat – and yet there’s some other flavor dominant which (and I do apologize for the suggestion) somehow reminds me of mucilage or packing tape: it’s definitely not the usual thing. At times I find it challenging and not quite welcome; at other times, especially when paired with some soppressata-style salami, it calms down into something more conventionally agreeable, with flashes of comforting sweetness amongst rich smoky earth and ripe red fruits.

I have absolutely no idea what Don Pullum and the rest of the folks at Sandstone Cellars are doing, but it’s some of the most interesting wine I’ve ever tasted. If there ever needed to be proof that Texas makes serious wine, this is it.

Sandstone Cellars
Price: $25
Closure: Cork

Ridge Zinfandel Stone Ranch 2004

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Rich and dusty, there’s also the suggestion of medicine here, medicine that’s hiding something darker underneath an allegedly friendly façade. To me, it’s suggestive of dusty, decaying leather and no longer fashionable roses, a perfume that’s not friendly enough to sell well at Target. But that’s fine by me; a famous Frenchman once said that a perfume should smell of a woman who neglects herself, and this wine is heading in that same direction. It’s the smell of a wine that doesn’t particularly care what you think – kind of punk rock, I suppose.Deeply purple, youthful, and unapologetically alcoholic (if the jambes are to go by), it begins to give it up for fruitiness after a few minutes’ worth of exposure to air. Still, the fruity jam is nicely framed by that savory, dusty edge of dirt and restraint.Brighter than you’d expect in the mouth, what you get is a very floral, bright wine with hints of an aged character. In fact, it almost seems like there’s a skosh of volatile acidity lurking here; it just seems to… well, perky. It’s all moderately good… and yet it seems like there’s something every so slightly out of balance here. Even so, the character of the wine sneaks to the foreground from time to time, with a dusty, frankly kind of generically Zin-ny characteristic that’s good enough… almost. I’d be lying if I said I weren’t disappointed by this; all of the elements of a good Ridge zinfandel appear to be here; the problem is that they aren’t coherent, interrupted as they are by that acidic brightness and the odd sharpness of the wine. If I have anything particularly nice to say about this wine, it’s probably simply that it’s relatively inexpensive for a Ridge.Tannins, by the way, seemed missing in action for me, but my friend Mark says “wow, it’s all chunky tannins!” It could be simply that my taste buds have gone walkabout for the evening!Update: Ten minutes on, it’s warmed up a bit from the cellar, and now it’s going a sort of cassia bark path, devolving into a sort of vanillin spice box character. Interesting.Ridge
Price: $24
Closure: Cork