WTN: Zins single blind

Notes from a single-blind Zin tasting at Cirkulo with some of the usual suspects and a few new faces.

7 wines presented and we each vote for our top 3 with 3 points going to wine 1, 2 points to wine 2, and 1 point to wine 3.

Before getting down to business, we had 2 whites:

Terramaior Albarino 2007 - Good fruit. Lemony. A little watery in the finish. Pleasant and easy.

Trimbach Gewurztraminer 2006 - Light gold. Classic Gewurz. Lychee and spice. A bit lean but I have no problem with that. Good fruit and length. Very good.

The whites out of the way we shifted to the business at hand:

Wine A - A bit of browning on the rim. Oaky nose. Some earthiness. Sweet and oaky. Good length but again, oak on the finish. I didn't like this at all. Rosenblum Lyon Reserve Zinfandel 2005. No points from me. Group # 2 with 12 points.

Wine B - Youngish color. Great fruit and balance. Medium-bodied. Everything in the right place. Lovely, spicy. Excellent wine. Seghesio Home Ranch Zinfandel 2005. My number 1. Group #1 with 17 points, making it a clear winner.

Wine C - A little hot. Young, tannic, leather, tight, closed. Dryish finish. Not too interesting. Maybe needs a lot of time to come around. Ravenswood Teldeschi Vineyard Zinfandel 2005. No points from me. Group #6 with no points and tied for last place with wine F.

Wine D - Sulfur, rubber, something decayed and rotting. Very unpleasant nose. Quite sweet, overripe, rich. Too stinky for me although, curiously, the others didn't seem to find the nose as offensive. Jessup Cellars Zinfandel 2005. No points from me. Group #5 with 2 points.

Wine E - Quite sweet but well-balanced. Lots of fruit and lightly oaked. Soft. Very nice. Some age on this and slight oxidation noted. Beaulieu Vineyards Zinfandel 1995. My number 2. Group # 4 with 8 points.

Wine F - Very dark. A bit of oak but well-balanced. Soft, rich, young. Coffee. Just about ready but will surely improve with more time. Ridge Geyserville 2005. My wine but no points from me. Group #6 with no points and tied with Wine C for last place. I absolutely adored this wine when I tried it last month so I'm a bit puzzled as to why it didn't do better. Maybe in this company it just needs more time.

Wine G - Very rich and spicy. Lots of fruit. Plum and fig. A little porty or perhaps Amarone-like. Very good although it's not a style everyone will like. Turley Tofanelli Vineyard Zinfandel 1998. My number 3. Group #3 with 9 points.

I have to say it was very difficult for me to choose between The Beaulieu, Turley and Geyserville for my second and third choices. Looking at the vintages, it appears I preferred the older zins to the youth of the Geyserville.

Appropriately, we finished with a half-bottle of Seghesio Port 1999 which I thought was a convincing imitation of a vintage port.

Congratulations are in order to Arnie, who brought both wines #1 and #2 and who organized the whole thing.

[David M. Bueker]

Sounds like the group appreciates the rich, alcoholic, oaky style.

I'll take the '95 BV over almost everything else on the list (save for the puzzling Geyserville).

Sounds like the group appreciates the rich, alcoholic, oaky style.

I'll take the '95 BV over almost everything else on the list (save for the puzzling Geyserville).

That's right. I know that at least 2 in the group prefer the milk-shake style of zin. I thought BV had a reputation for under-achieving the past few years so I was quite surprised at how good it was.

Thanks for the tasting notes. I was a big fan of Seghesio's Zins back in the 1980s when the Winecellar of Silene was the only shop who brought them into Massachusetts.

The recent vintages that I've seen have had something on the label that's put me off buying them: an alarming 15+ percent alcohol! Hey, this isn't Sherry, it's supposed to be table wine! What was the alcohol level on the Seghesio Home Vineyards wine you tasted? I like and expect high alcohol content in Sherry, Madeira, and Port, but I loathe it in table wines.

-Paul W.

I failed to note the alcohol content but wouldn't be surprised if it was 15% or more. Although the alcohol may have been high, I still found the wine well-balanced and not showing any alcohol heat. In fact, the only one that seemed unbalanced by the alcohol was the Ravenswood.