Lone Redwood was always (the vineyard has been replanted in supposedly more cash-fruitful vines) a problematic vineyard for Rod Berglund. (He's said so to me more than once.)
This was a problematic bottle of '04 (an even-year vintage, and I've opined about that phenomenon) when I opened it for spaghetti this evening. The whiff was thin, the color was light cherry, the first sip was considerably mouth-puckering.
This is ZIN!!! Zin is not, characteristically, a lean, hard, unapproachable wine. (Am I speaking to the choir?)
I had opened it early, expecting some challenges, and as I heated up the sauce, boiled the spaghetti (tonight, spaghetti was spaghetti with my usual sauce on it, not some other pasta with my usual sauce on it) and made the salad, I kept poking at it. It got better, developed some bramble and early blackberry, but not the most wonderful thing in the world.
I had some dregs of a bottle of Coffaro Carignane in the fridge, so I tossed those in the glass. It helped.
David Coffaro and Rod Berglund are about as far apart in winemaking styles as it gets. I like them both, I like both their styles, sometimes more one than the other, but that's the way it goes. Sometimes a glass-blend is all it takes to turn an ordeal into a pretty good glass.
I guess you could call me a vino-omnivore.