Cracked this oldie from the archives last night w/ low expectations:
1. RosenblumCllrs Zin GeorgeHendryVnyd/NapaVlly (13.6%; Aged in Fr./Am. oak for 20 mo.; U/U) Alameda 1992: Dark color w/ some bricking; fairly strong blackberry/Zin/very spicy bit volatile/alcoholic fairly toasty/oak slight pencilly/cedary/old Zin light dusty/OV slightly tired complex nose; lightly tart strong blackberry/Zin/spicy/peppery some toasty/oak bit cedary/pencilly/oldZin bit alcoholic remarkable youthful flavor w/ light chewey tannins; very long blackberry/Zin finish that tracks flavor; getting a bit ragged around the edges & slightly dried out on the palate but an amazing amount of blackberry Zin fruit & a great example of a fully mature Zin in the twilight of its yrs; surprisingly youthful & still a pleasure to drink.
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More georgefissle from TheBloodyPulpit:
1. I was not expecting a 34 yr old Zin to have much life in it. I was dead wrong. It still had plenty of blackberry/Zin fruit to it. The next morning, out on the counter, it still had a lot of blackberry fruit, but the dried-out character was coming to the forefront & it had a pretty astringent finish.
George Hendry was one of my favorite growers. A bit of a slip of a man, but he was very intelligent. He worked in accelerator design at the Lawrence/Berkeley Rad Lab. When we'd get together, we'd always talk things nuclear & his relationship w/ E.O.Lawrence, one of my nuclear heros from the Manhattan Project days. George eventually quite the Rad/Lab & devoted his life to growing primo grapes. In those later yrs, he designed & built cyclotrons or linear accelerators for medical purposes in his barn on the ranch. The County of Napa would have shut the place down if they knew what he was doing in his barn there. EGads....radiation!!
Tom