by Tom Hill

A self-admitted wine geek, Tom lives in Northern New Mexico and works as a computational physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory doing numerical neutron transport & large scale code development. He has been tasting wines since 1971, participates locally with a couple of large tasting groups in his area, and is practically a fixture at most California wine festivals, such as the Hospice du Rhône, Rhône Rangers, and ZAP. Other interests: Tom is heavily into competitive sport fencing (foil & epee), biking, cooking, basketball, skiing, backpacking, mountain climbing.

 

Older Zinfandels
Tasted a few older Zins out of the archives last week.

Montevina Amador County Zinfandel (14.5%) '79: Med.color; some Amador blackberry ripe jammy rather cedary/charred nose; strong licorice pungent bit metallic burnt rather hot/alcoholic flavor; long licorice charred burnt pungent bit hot/ alcoholic finish; interesting nose but drying out & hot & alcoholic on the palate.
Montevina Amador County Zinfandel (15%) '78: Med.dark color; strong pungent smokey oaked slight oxidized nose; rather dried-out licorice pungent bit hot/ alcoholic some jammy fruit flavor; med.long burnt/charred tannic hot finish; drying out & lost a lot of fruit & rather hot & alcoholic but holding better than the '79 & still rather interesting.
Shafer Napa Valley Stag's Leap area Zinfandel (14.2%) '79: Med.color w/ slight brown; strong cedary old Cab dusty complex nose; bit herbal/charred cedary/dusty complex flavor; med.short tannic dried out cedary/old Calif Cab finish; interesting & like an old Calif Cab but drying out quite a bit.
Deer Park Napa Valley Zinfandel (14.3%) '79: Med.dark color; very strong pungent black cherry cough syrup very smokey tarry Barolo-like nose; off-dry intense black cherry cough syrup tarry pungent smokey flavor; long tarry/pungent black cherry smokey finish; a classic Howell Mtn Zin that's in great shape w/ still lots of fruit; very tarry & Barolo-like & a bit overripe; should go on for another 5-10 yrs perhaps.
Buehler Napa Valley Zinfandel (14%) '79: Very dark color; beautiful pungent charred oak pencilly smokey oaked cedary pencilly meaty peppery CoteRotie/bacon fat roasted nose; strong tarry pungent smokey peppery raosted dusty mtn Zin spicy flavor; very long roasted peppery charred pungent roasted finish w/ some tannins; still fruit in there and going strong; very much like a mature Cote Rotie; classic Togni wine.
Buehler Napa Valley Zinfandel (14%) '80: Black color; intense pungent smokey very peppery overripe jammy licorice nose; off-dry very ripe pungent jammy blackberry/cola smokey flavor; long very jammy peppery licorice tannic pungent roasted finish w/ some tannins; classic Togni; in great shape & still lots of fruit; bit on the overripe/late harvest side.
ZD Napa Valley Zinfandel (13.8%) '80: Med.color; strong cedary old Cab/pencilly licorice dusty complex nose; tart hard dried-out pencilly oaked dusty licorice pungent flavor; med.long tomatoey dried-out tannic pencilly menthol oaked finish; great nose w/ lots of cedary/pencilly character but dried-out and dying on the palate.
Santino Fiddletown Amador County Special Selection Eschen Vineyard Zinfandel (14%) '80: Med.dark color; beautiful aromatic classic Eschen/cherry/black cherry slight tarry very spicy/perfumy fragrant nose; tart smooth very spicy bright cherry perfumed bit tannic flavor; very long aromatic bright cherry very spicy perfumy some tannic finish; an incredible aromatic complex nose and smooth and lush on the palate; a classic Eschen cherry Zin; finally.. but finally this wine has come around; it was always a hard & tannic Zin; one of the best MATURE Eschen Zins I've had (some of the Ridges were equally good); this was Scott Harvey's first yr at Santino & the (then) kid did good.
Quivira Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel (13.5%) '85: Med.dark color; fragrant perfumed talc Am.oaked spicy some raspberry Zin nose; tart bit lean metallic appely light raspberry oaked bit thin flavor; med.short dried out cedary oaked tannic very light raspberry finish; drying out & dying on the palate but nice nose; this was Doug Nalle's last wine at Quivira.
Gundlach-Bundschu Sonoma Valley Rhinefarm Vineyard Zinfandel (14.1%) '87: Med.dark color; very strong very milky/Am.oaked blackberry/dill bit vegetal nose; soft fat very dill/Am.oaked vegetal/herbal weird flavor; long very strong Am.oaked/ dill herbal very milky/oaked finish; soft & fat & porky & loaded w/ milky Am.oak; not developing any at all, sorta suspended in time; very typical GunBun Rhinefarm Zin.
Eberle Paso Robles Sauret Vineyard Zinfandel (14.8%) '89: Med.light color; lovely lush fragrant strawberry/raspberry spicy light oaked nose; tart lush very spicy bright raspberry/strawberry light pencilly/oaked flavor; long bright spicy raspberry/strawberry light pencilly finish w/ light tannins; still loads of that bright raspberry/strawberry fruit but ready to drink; Gary's first Zin since his EstrellaRiver days; this has always been such a bright spicy very nice drinking Zin, not a big powerhouse of a wine.
Storrs Ben Lomand Mountain Beauregard Ranch Zinfandel (13.7%) '91: Dark color; very strong dusty/walnutty smokey/pungent/pencilly oaked mtn Zin light raspberry nose; rich pungent mtn Zin dusty/walnutty complex some raspberry flavor; very long dusty/walnutty complex SantaCrzMtn Zin light blackberry finish w/ light tannins; a very complex interesting Zin atypical of Calif Zin but rather typical of SCM Zins; like some of the Ridge Jimsomare/MonteBello Zins of old; this has been a rather hard/rustic Zin & starting to show some real complexity; very well-done Zin.
Sea Ridge Occidental Vineyards Zinfandel (13.5%) '91: Black color; intense overripe blackberry some oaked nose; very tart intense blackberry off-dry pungent licorice charred flavor; very long overripe off-dry tart blackberry/boysen- berry pencilly oaked dusty finish w/ ample tannins; will age for a long time if it's a good bottle; a dead ringer for the Ridge Occidental '70 (one of the greatest Zins ever made); lots of bottle varibility on this wine, some have been fizzy & doing a M-L in the bottle or refermenting; this is the best bottle by far.


Speaking ex-cathedra:
The DeerPark, the two Buehlers, the Santino were all stunning/mature Zins; the Eberle,the Storrs, the SeaRidge equally fine but younger wines. The others were pretty typical of old Zins.... interesting intellectual experiences but seldom exciting sensual pleasures (reminds me of a few... oh, that's a subject for another forum!). None were unpleasant, just some didn't thrill much. So do Zinfandels age??? Do high-alcohol "monster" Zins age? The folklore is that a Zin must be "well-balanced" to age? So what does this data tell us?? Actually, not a whole lot. The Shafer, the ZD, the Quivira were nice "well- balanced" Zins in their youth. Gone gone gone now! The Buehlers and the DeerPark were big ripe huge Zins in their youth, monster Zins. Still with us and doing fine, thank you! The Montevinas were big ripe, loaded w/ lush Amador jammy fruit, not particularly alcoholic (but don't put much credance in the 14.5% & 15% levels on the label), bright zippy Zin in their youth. Dried out & gone now! The Eberle was always a brigt zippy all-in-the nose Zin when first released. Doing just fine. So it's going to take someone with a grander intellect than mine do make any sense out of this & come up with some gross generalities... so we don't have to do any thinking on our own!! Actually, this is pretty typical tasting of older Zins... some we expect to be doing fine... are dead; and some we expect to be dead... are doing fine. It's just a bigger crap-shoot w/ Zins than it is w/ Cabs.... but who'd stoop to drink those wines!! :-) TomHill (heading home to take yet more data points!!)