Description
There is no grape as markedly American as Zinfandel. And no placelike Dry Creek Valley, with its potent heat by day and Pacific-cooledbreeze by night, to bring forth that larger-than-life berry fruitcharacter in every bottle.
Bottle Size: 750 ml
Appellation: Sonoma County
Sub-Appellation: Dry Creek Valley
Grape Varieties: Zinfandel; Carignane
Alcohol Percentage: 14.90%
Fermentation: Different blocks were fermented separately to preserve ideal characteristics of each. Each block spends an average of 12 days on the skins.
Aging: The separate blocks were blended post malolactic fermentation and aged for 16 months in 20% new oak barrels.
Nose
First impression:Full on olfactory seduction and sweet niceness. There are black fruits (blackcurrant/cassis), raisins, cloves, liquorice and the kind of vanilla that you get with Bourbon (new American Oak?).
Also some baked sweet deliciousness – perhaps Battenberg cake – plus candied almonds. It’s not hugely aromatic, per se but goddamn, it smells amazing! The nose knows.
And, as with many such wines, there is also a heady alcoholic kick.Aeration takes some of the sharp booziness off of the nose. Rum steepedraisins become soft vanilla…
Palate
First impression: Smooth as glass and with heroic fruitiness. There are ripe plums and wonderfully gentle tannins that are like the entire angelic hierarchy doing a dance on your tongue.
After you acclimatise the predominant taste is a spicy clamour of cloves, red fruitvanilla, blackstrap molasses and blackcurrants – imagine Ribena but with alcohol and a much more subtle, rounded taste. It iswonderful. At 15% ABV you wouldn’t know it.
It issoeasy drinking that it should perhaps come with a disclaimer.
Finish
Medium to short – the smoothness does not linger too long. The raisins, redfruit and a small bit of vanilla stick around on your tongue, but not nearly for as long as you might like (which is, I suppose, where this wine falls down a little).
What you’re left with is a slight creaminess from the oak – and when you exhale from your nose, some vanilla and fruit. And your life affirming memories. Better have another glass.
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