Greetings, wine-lovairs! This week our sommelier is . . . . Rick!
Earlier Wine Club threads are here and here. Any interested poster is welcome to join us, try the wine, and post their questions, comments, and reactions. Rick will be choosing a wine some time in the next few days, either one he knows and recommends, or one he’d like us to join him in trying. We will be discussing it next Thursday. Lead us to the vino Promised Land, Rick!
OK, better late than never. Sorry about the delay in getting back here, but life keeps interrupting my dope time.
OK this week we are going to do one of my favorite wines, a full bodied Zinfandel.
I used to be a real wine slob. Some friends of mine turned me onto a full bodied Zin at dinner one night and I was hooked.
Here is some background info on Zinfandels. Some more info here
While I agree with the note on temp, I am not 100% behind the narrow mouthed glass, I like to be able to stick my nose in the glass and smell the aroma of a good Zin.
The wines for this go around of tasting are from Rancho Zabaco. Maybe not the best Zin out there, but very widely available, and very reasonable. I tend to keep several of these bottles on hand for every day drinking.
My first choice for the tasting is a Rancho Zabaco Sonoma Heritage Vine Zinfandel either 2003 or 2004.
If you can’t find that, look for a Rancho Zabaco Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel
If that does not work, look for Rancho Zabaco Dancing Bull
All three wines have very similar labels, check the links.
If you still can’t find any of these get a good quality California Zinfandel. At last count these just over 1.2 jillion California Zinfandel wines.
In LA these Rancho Zabaco wines sell for between about $8 and $15 dollars.
When you go to taste the wine, may I suggest you do it with dinner? A grilled hamburger, or a steak or Pizza is just lovely with a good Zin. I’m not kidding about the burger, the meat and the wine really go well together.
Oh fun. We just had a Zin last night with Pizza - the first Zin I can remember having in forever. Very de-lish!
I’ll take a look for the ones Rick suggested. I’ve had Rancho Zabaco before, so I know it’s available.
I made this same request in the Week One thread: can you give us an indication of the taste of this wine? As I mentioned in that thread, I am unable to drink dry wines, as well as most red wines that I’ve tried, because they give me horrible heartburn instantly. I prefer a sweeter wine, and I guess for red wine the term is less tannic? Anyway, I would prefer to not spend my money (student budget here) on a wine that I am likely to be unable to drink, and would rather save my money for those wines that fall more within the range of wines that I enjoy. So just as a favor, if those recommending wines could give some indication…?
From the Winemaker’s notes in my first link above:
California Zins are a very fruity wine, you can taste many berry, cherry and other fruit flavors. Typically they are not tannic, and not woody like many Chards.
This is not to say they are sweet. They are not dry, but not sweet, they are fruity. Some Zins are, as my friend says, a fruit bomb. The fruit flavors almost explode in your mouth.
More expensive Zins ($40+) tends to more traditional and more tannic. The lower priced Zins don’t have much in the way of tannins.
If cost is an issue look for the Dancing Bull, you can probably find it for $8-10 bucks.
I called a friend of mine who is a wine nut to make sure I had this right. When he heard the part about the burgers, he said to tell you that you need smoked Gouda cheese on the burgers to go with the Zin.
So when you are buying the wine, pick up some smoked Gouda!
But I don’t eat burgers. Well, not meat ones, anyway. I could have them with veggie burgers, I suppose…
Thanks for the summary–it sounds like a potential winner!
The Zin is going to be quite a bit more acidic than the previous wine. That’s a good thing, IMO, but it wouldn’t be one of the first wines that spring to mind for Opal’s tastes.
I have a bottle of the Dancing Bull in my wine rack. I am off to search for Sonoma Heritage Vine Zin…
I might just have a bottle of that stashed somewhere…I’ll have to look. Won’t be a problem, as we have a bunch of zins around that I rarely get to drink since the wife doesn’t really like them. But she’s out of town until Sunday, so zin it is!
I couldn’t find the Sonoma Heritage Vine.
I did find the Dry Creek Valley, as well as a Russian River Valley, a Monte Rosso Vineyard, and a ‘Toreador’, also from the Monte Rosso vineyard. So, I bought them all. 
I’m off to Sacramento to play with the rest of the cork dorks in the country for a few days, I’ll post my notes on Friday or Saturday. I’m looking forward to these, I’ve had the Dry Creek before (with a steak) and thought it was a pretty damn good Zin. It’s definitely my favorite brand in Gallo’s portfolio.
i actually just bought a bottle of SHV select, 2003. lets open it up and have a taste…
it’s a very pleasant wine, but i suspect that i would like it better with something to eat. my experience with zins are that they react to spices in foods very well. it has a deep purple color and a fruity smell that gets me in the back of my throat. i have to admit that i am recovering from a cold and my tastes might be a little off. i’m drinking it out of a wide mouth wine glass, because damn it, i like the glass. i drink all my red wine from it. it has a spicy fruit taste to it. a lot of cherry and i think a hint of earth. it’s dry and i can feel the tangy-niss on the side of my tongue. very nice. i’ll see if i can make up a bowl of ravioli with Clasico vodka sauce (yum). that should greatly improve the experience i would think. i would not suggest drinking this wine with out a meal to go with it.
Found the Heritage Vine '03. The problem with going to Haskell’s is if the wine guy is there, I always walk out with a couple of extra bottles, and tonight was no exception. Now I just have to decide if I’m going to start in on the zin now or wait for the weekend…
Found the Sonoma Heritage Vines at Bevmo this afternoon. I’m gonna wait until Friday to crack it, when I can put my feet up and savor the wine. Now, what to have for dinner Friday…?
I found the Rancho Zabaco Sonoma Heritage Vine Zin (2003) for $12.99 at the grocery – IOW, cheaper for me than last week’s wine. I popped the cork off that mother and had a glass with dinner, but will save my comments for tomorrow. I’m out of town this weekend, so let’s just say that’s why I opened the wine early.
I picked up the '03 Heritage Vines at France 44 . Not my usual store, mainly because of their prices. But it was convenient yesterday, and they had the bottle for $11.88. I also picked up a bottle of Rare Breed while I was there, but that’s for another thread.
As for the wine…
I really like the nose on this wine. It just screams Zin to me. I got cherry in the nose and on the palate. Some spiciness in the taste, though not a lot compared to other zins. Mainly I liked the fruit. Sort of a cherry, jammy flavor, I think.
For most of first glass I argued with myself about what I thought about the acidity. The more I drank, the less the acidity bothered me, but in the end, I think the wine is just ever so slightly too acidic. I think that’s quibbling though. For the money, it’s a perfectly good, though maybe not great zin. Overall, I definitely enjoyed it.
One other dumb thing that bothered me about this bottle though…the bottle. I have a thing against bottles that are wider at the top than at the base. They just don’t stack right.
So start the Rare Breed thread already! 
I cracked my bottle of the '03 when I got home from work. Nice as a sipper, but much better with food. It even stood up to my sinus-clearing ham steak (3 mustards, red pepper, 3 paprikas, brown suger, pan-fry). A good zin, but not a great one. Berries on the nose, backed with leather and tobacco. Just enough acidity to give it some backbone. Nice puckering finish, but not too much. I’s definitely call this a food wine. Not that there;s anything wrong with that!
Are you kidding? I opened that last night! 
BTW, that ham steak sounds great.
Just opened a bottle of the 04’. I intend to drink the entire thing myself since my wife is in the middle coast. Not that she would drink anyway. I’m not much of a wine connoisseur more of a wine consumer. What am I tasting? It’s pretty good.
I couldn’t find it, but I only looked at one store. Will stop at a couple tomorrow.
Opalcat, you have mentioned that you do not like dry wines. What exactly is a dry wine?