Zinfandel Tasting at Fort Mason

Shane’s Notes

This was our second Zinfandel festival and probably our last. We aren’t huge fans of Zinfandel and this festival was just too crowded. I don’t want to spend half my time pushing people out of the way to get a mediocre glass of wine. At its best, Zinfandel can have nice concentration with a little spice and that’s about it. It really is just a pleasant quaffer and until I taste that magical Zinfandel which leads me into a rapturous epiphany, there won’t be too many Zins on our wine rack. So, when I see that a winery like Turley is charging $75 for a bottle of Zin, I just laugh. For that price, I can get a magnificent Condrieu or Pinot.

Our tasting notes are rather cursory. We don’t want to waste all our time taking notes at social events. We just scribbled down a few quick impressions of some of the more memorable wines.

Alexander Valley Vineyards
NA, 2005 Redemption Zin
$20 2005 Sin Zin
$15, 2005 Temptation Zin

My brother came with us on this trip so we wanted to get things off to a good start. We started with Alexander Valley Vineyards’ troika of Zins. We loved these Zins last year but they were disappointing this year. The Redemption Zin (I always like to drink the Redemption Zin, then the Sin Zin followed by the Temptation Zin) was out of balance (hot) and had just a slightly sweet red fruit flavor. The Sin Zin was the best of the three but still nothing great. It was well balanced and had good concentration with a dark berry flavor. It was a touch oaky with a medium finish. The Temptation Zin was my favorite last year and my least favorite this year. I wrote down “cloying and sweet. Bad.” Enough said.

$20, Eberle, 2005 Stenbeck, Wine Bush, Paso Robles

We love Peachy Canyon so we thought we should try a few Paso Robles Zins. We stopped at Eberle and their Zin was decent. It was smooth with a mild berry flavor tinged with vanilla. It was also borderline oaky.

$30, 2003 Century Vines, Shaw Vineyard, Sonoma

Kunde never ceases to amaze me. They must have high case productions and they make such a wide variety of wines that you would think they couldn’t possibly do them all well. However, Kunde somehow manages to consistently craft good wines year in and year out. Their Century Vines Zin was again one of the best of the tasting. It had a concentrated berry flavor and was spicy. Despite the concentration, it somehow managed to be subtle. This is about the most any winery could get me to pay for a zin. Now, my brother wasn’t thrilled with this one so I asked him why. The answer was simple – he doesn’t like pepper on his food and he certainly doesn’t like the pepper taste in his wine. No way around that one.

It was about at this point that I noticed that two guys had actually brought their own wine glasses. I was curious about who would bring a special glass to a Zin tasting so I watched them taste. They received their pours and immediately commenced with these hilarious, affectatious swirls before jamming their noses deep into their glasses. They took tiny sips and began pontificating on the glories of the wine. I wanted to tap one of them on the shoulder and say, “Zinfandel, dude, it’s just Zinfandel.”

Turley
$75, 2005 Hayne Vineyard, Barrel Sample

We had not liked the Turley Zins at the festival last year, but I was more than willing to give the iconic Turley another chance. We tried the 2005 Hayne barrel sample and we all liked it. Personally, I’m not thrilled with barrel samples because I don’t think I have the expertise to tell how the wine will taste in the bottle. That said, this was very smooth, devoid of spice, was well balanced and had a nice fruit flavor with a medium finish. If it gets better by the time it hits the bottle, it will be a nice Zin. We did our tasting without looking at the prices. I remember tasting this one and thinking it might be worth as much as $30 a bottle. I laughed after the festival when I saw the price. No Zin is worth $75.

$28, 2005, Ridge Paso Robles

Ridge was another winery that failed to impress us at last year’s festival. We tried their Paso Robles offering and thought it quite nice – well balanced with light berry flavors.

Peachy Canyon
$19, Westside

We really liked this one. It was much more subtle than most Zins, but it hit the palate with deep, pure waves of flavor (if that makes any sense). Peachy Canyon makes some interesting Zins.