All it takes is one wine-tasting trip to the Shenandoah Valley in Amador County to learn the value of old-vine Zinfandel. While most Zinfandels bring tasty fruit to the equation, with some tending towards elegance, it is the old-vine grapes that lend Zinfandel its spicy complexity. I visited the Seghesio tasting room in Healsburg the first time in 2006 and walked away with a 2003 Barbera that I let rest for three years before opening and enjoying. I bought this Zinfandel last year thinking that the summer heat we experienced in 2008 may have helped produce a tasty Zin, and it did. This wine needed about 30 minutes to come into balance, after which it drank quite nicely. The palette was complex and spicy, featuring hibiscus tea, red cherry, pepper, baking spices, and minerals.
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