Tag Archives: zinfandel

Wine of the week: Ravenswood Old Vine Vintners Zinfandel 2009

image from 3.bp.blogspot.comOne of the things that the Wine Curmudgeon doesn ?t like about this job is how cynical it has made me about grocery store wine. So many of them have been so disappointing that I ?m at the point that if the front or back label uses adjectives or descriptions like reserve, old vine, or artisan, I figure the marketing department is compensating for quality (given that federal regulations for using terms like these is vague, at best).

So I expected absolutely nothing from the Ravenswood ($10, sample); that ?s why it sat in the wine closet for 13 months. Shows how much I know, other than to reiterate the No. 1 rule of wine reviewing: Don ?t judge the wine until you taste it.

This red is surprising in many ways, not the least of which is that it held up for a year. There is lots of sweet berry fruit in the modern zinfandel style, but it ?s not unpleasant and it ?s balanced by some some traditional zinfandel character (particularly pepper). It ?s a nice value for $10.

Don ?t worry too much if the wine you find is the current vintage and not this one. One of the good things about grocery store wines is that they are consistent in taste and style from year to year.

Expensive wine 43: Ridge Three Valleys 2010

Ridge Three ValleysIf more California producers tended to business the way Ridge does, the Wine Curmudgeon would not have nearly as much to complain about. It has been one of the best wineries in the U.S. for almost four decades, and it ?s not a coincidence that its Monte Bello cabernet sauvignon was a California entry at the Judgment of Paris.

Even during the silliness before the recession, when so many wineries chased points and dollar signs, Ridge did things pretty much the way it had always done them. It ?s still doing that today, which is why it ?s always on my list of the wineries that I respect the most.That ?s saying something, because its least expensive wine is around $25.

That ?s the Three Valleys ($22, purchased), a red blend made of mostly zinfandel. It has enough zinfandel character to appeal to those who like the post-modern style, yet it's also balanced between the jammy blackberry fruit, the oak, and what seems to be an almost herbal-like spiciness. And, somehow, it's only 14.4 percent alcohol, almost unheard of for zinfandel these days.

In this, it's an honest wine, something Ridge has always aimed for. Winemaker John Olney practices his craft the way it should be, and not how so many others do it to get high scores or critical raves.

Pair this wine with almost any red wine food, especially as the days get cooler, and it's an excellent choice for the fall holidays.

Mini-reviews 37: Fourth of July edition

Reviews of wines that don ?t need their own post, but are worth noting for one reason or another. Look for it on the final Friday of each month. This edition, in honor of July 4, focuses on wines worth drinking for the holiday:

  ? Pepperwood Grove Groovy Green Pinot Noir NV ($7, sample): As long as you don't mind that it doesn't taste like pinot noir, it's an adequate red table wine with pinot and 25 percent syrah (the maximum amount allowed for it to be called pinot). And the Groovy Green bit? For its environmentally friendly packaging.

? Jean-Marc Brocard Chablis 2009 ($20, purchased): What's the Fourth of July without a French wine to honor the country that made our independence possible? The Brocard is chardonnay, but is rounder and softer, with more red apple fruit than the usual wines from the Chablis region, which have green apple and bracing acidity. Having said that, it's not worse, just different, and a nice way to end a holiday weekend.

? Pio Cesare Langhe Arneis 2011 ($20, purchased): Arneis is a rare Piedmontese white grape usually used for blending in expensive red wine, or to make flabby, simple stuff. This wine, though, has been taken somewhere it has never been before — crisp and fresh, with an almost gewurtzraminer-like spice and subtle pear fruit. Yes, expensive, but highly recommended nonetheless.

? Kendall-Jackson Zinfandel Vintner's Reserve 2010 ($17, sample): Nicely done mid-weight zinfandel, with some heft, blackberry brambliness, and black pepper. But it is neither overwhelming, like the 15 1/2 percent alcohol zinfandels, or all fruit, like the poorly made cheap ones.

Mini-reviews 36: Ribera, La Vieille Ferme, Rodney Strong, Sledgehammer

Reviews of wines that don ?t need their own post, but are worth noting for one reason or another. Look for it on the final Friday of each month:

? Bodegas Pe alba L pez Monte Castrillo 2009 ($13, sample): Spanish tempranillo from Ribera del Duero with lots of thickish red fruit that needs beefy dishes. Decent value, but you have to like wine made this way.

? La Vieille Ferme Blanc 2011 ($8, purchased): Hugely disappointing vintage from the French white that is a long-time blog favorite. Big-time banana fruit, which not only isn't pleasant, but shows a change in winemaking to softer and more sweetish approach.

? Rodney Strong Sauvignon Blanc 2010 ($13.50, sample): Always dependable and value-driven California white. Look for melon and California grassiness, thought not quite as citrusy as other west coast sauvignon blancs.

? Sledgehammer Zinfandel 2009 ($15, sample): Yes, it is. A massive, oaky, and alcoholic zinfandel with extracted jammy fruit if that's what you're in the mood for.

Wine of the week: Bogle Old Vine Zinfandel 2009

image from www.boglewinery.comThis is the Wine Curmudgeon's Thanksgiving gift to the California wine industry. Taste this, and you'll see what great cheap wine should be.

This is not surprising, of course, to anyone who has been paying attention. Bogle has long been one of my favorite producers, and it has been in the $10 Hall of Fame for as long as there has been a $10 Hall. But given how California wants to make cheap red wine so that it tastes like slightly sweet grape juice with too much alcohol, I figured I'd better make the point again.

First, what doesn't the Bogle ($10, purchased) have? It doesn't have that cough syrupy sweet fruit that is all the rage. The alcohol isn't so overwhelming that that you feel it coming out of your nose. What does it have? Enough blueberry fruit  to be noticeable, but not so much as to overpower the wine. A beginning and an end, including some very zippy tannins and a little earthiness — again, something not only rare in $10 wine, but especially these days, as winemakers try to make red wine taste as fruity as possible at the expense of everying else.

Highly recommended, and one of the best California red wines I've had in years. Embarrassingly better. This will earn Bogle a special citation when the 2012 Hall comes out in six weeks, and you could do much worse than to serve it at Thanksgiving. Much, much worse — as, sadly, too many will do, seduced by scores and descriptors that make them think the wine tastes better than it does.

More about Thanksgiving wine:
? Thanksgiving wine 2011
? Thanksgiving wine 2010
? Wine of the week: Chateau de Riviere Chinon 2009
? Wine of the week: Tortoise Creek Pinot Noir Les Oliviers 2010
? Wine of the week: Dry Creek Fume Blanc 2010

Wine of the week: Cline Cellars Zinfandel 2009

cline zinfandelThe Wine Curmudgeon, as regular visitors here know, is quite skeptical about what he likes to call post-modern zinfandel. Those are the ones with higher alcohol, that feature way over the top fruit, and bear little resemblance to what passed for zinfandel in the old days (in this case, five or six years ago).

What’s worse is that these wines often move middle-aged men to wear baseball caps backward, call each other dude, and offer high-fives to everyone they see when they drink them. And then they say things, when asked about the wine, like “sweee-eet.”

That will not happen with the Cline ($11, sample), which is about as traditional a zinfandel as you’re going to find these days — and especially at this price. The alcohol is just 14 percent, which is not much at all in these days of 15 and 16 percent wines. There is cherry fruit, but it’s not sweet or gloppy like it is in so many other entry level zinfandels. Plus, the Cline actually has black pepper, which used to be a tell-tale zinfandel character but has mostly disappeared in the rush to add alcohol, sweet fruit and tannins.

Best yet, the Cline is food friendly, something else that many of the high alcohol zinfandels don’t bother with anymore. Drink with this with barbecue or burgers, spaghetti and meatballs, or even chili (which I did) and be glad someone making zinfandel still respects the varietal.

Wine review: Dancing Bull Zinfandel 2009

Want to see how wine changes over time, taking into account things like vintage difference and consumer preferences, and especially how the big wine companies see consumer preference?

Then taste the Dancing Bull ($9, purchased), which is one of the most popular wines among visitors to the blog. In my review of the 2007 vintage, I wrote that it wasn’t “quite as spicy or brambly” as it was when the wine debuted a decade ago, but that it was still more or less a traditional zinfandel. The current vintage has changed even more. It still has some zinfandel character, with pepper on the nose and spice at the back, but there is a huge dollop of sweet red fruit in the middle that wasn’t there in the 2007 or when I first tasted it.

Which is where consumer preference — or what companies like E&J Gallo, which makes Dancing Bull, see as consumer preference — comes in. One of the big changes in U.S. grocery store wine over the past several years is, for lack of a better term, the addition of sweet fruit. It’s not that the wines are sweet, and the Dancing Bull is bone dry. Rather, it’s what Eric Asimov of the New York Times describes as not the “actual sugar in the wine, but also (more often) of the impression of sweetness. This impression can be provided by dominant fruit flavors and high concentrations of glycerol, a product of fermentation that is heavy, oily and slightly sweet.” And, he writes, California zinfandel exactly fits that description.

Gallo’s market research, apparently, has determined that consumers want that sweet fruit in their wine. So the company makes the wine that way, and the Dancing Bull is the result. Is this good or bad? Neither. As the Wine Curmudgeon has said many times, good and bad doesn’t apply to wine. It’s what each person wants to drink.