Our wine expert Nick Tomassi recommends six great California Zinfandels
for under $10.
WINE OF THE WEEK: Zinfandel; pick one of the good ones
below. Most are medium dry, dark garnet color; violet, raspberry, berry,
spice aroma; tastes of pepper, spice, berry, current.
Zinfandel (zin) has always been a favorite of mine because of it's
color, aroma, taste and finish. Almost all are from California. Occasionally
one finds a zin with extra high alcohol content, some reaching into the 15
percent bracket.
On a recent visit to Grape Expectations in Old Towne Silverdale,
I whined to Mary Earl that the good zins were just too expensive. If there's
anything Mary likes, it's a challenge. When she asked what I considered the
right price for a 'good' zin I said, " under $10." Two days later, she called
and invited me to a blind tasting of six California zins under $10!
Our task was to rank them in order of preference. This turned out
to be an almost impossible task for me because I liked them all. However,
knowing I would never hear the end of it from Mary, I struggled through a
second round of tastes, and identified my preferences. To my great surprise,
we agreed on most of them, and that doesn't happen very often. These were
also available for the Saturday wine tasting at the shop, and Mary noted
the preferences of other visitors to the shop during that day.
The consensus, in order of preference: '95 Beringer Coastal (a ringer
at $11), '96 Cline ($9), '96 Pedroncelli Dry Creek ($9), '96 Rabbit Ridge
($9), '95 Mountain View ($7), and '95 Talus ($6). One of our differences
was that I liked the Talus as well as the Beringer. (Cheap is good. Remember,
this was a blind tasting.) Look at my web page for a full description of
the wines.
Each of the zins was slightly different, but true to the variety.
By that I mean they were dry and a deep, dark red color with wonderful aromas
and tastes as noted above. I could sense the spice, pepper, and berry, but
couldn't name the berries, except for an occasional raspberry. While I was
there a customer tasting one of the zins reported blueberries, which Mary
had noted earlier.
One of the reasons I like zin is that it goes so well with the foods
I like to eat during the summer, such as pizza, barbecue, pizza, minestrone,
pizza and hamburgers with the works. Kathy makes a great pepperoni pizza.
We are fond of putting fresh tomato slices on as the final topping, after
it comes out of the oven.
The research on zinfandel is interesting. It was first thought to
be one of the 100,000 vines that Agoston Haraszthy brought back from Europe
between 1851 and 1862. But zinfandel was not listed among the vines he imported,
and no such red grape has been found in Hungary.
In his book, " The wines of America", Leon D. Adams reports that
in 1830, William Robert Prince grew zinfandel in Long Island, New York. Adams
also notes that during the 1840's, John Fisk Allen, a noted hybridizer, grew
'zinfindal' in Salem, Massachusetts, and published a description of it that
exactly matches California's 'zinfandel'.
Both accounts precede Haraszthy. But the most compelling evidence
comes from Dr. Austin Goheen, a plant pathologist who visited a friend in
Bari, in the southeast Italian province of Puglia in 1967. He saw grapes
that looked exactly like zinfandel which the farmers called "Primitivo di
Gioia". Cuttings were sent to Goheen and planted next to a row of zinfandel
at U. C. Davis.
Electronic comparisons of their enzymes were made, and they are
identical. To this day the grapes, seeds, juice and wine from the vines of
zinfandel and primitivo are indistinguishable. Most literature today acknowledges
that zinfandel's origins are in the primitivo grape from Italy.
About the author: Nick Tomassi teaches wine and beer appreciation
classes at Olympic College. You can e-mail him at
nicktom@silverlink.net. Visit
his website:
www.silverlink.net/winecabinet. |
