ZAP 2003
January 31, 2003

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I attended the annual Zinfandel Festival held by ZAP last weekend, and I'm just now sobering up enough to write about it.

It wasn't that long ago that I thought the world of Zinfandel. When I was first acquiring a taste for wine, Zins were definitely my favorite. Huge, highly extracted ink-black wines with an aroma you could smell from the next table.

I don't drink much Zin anymore. There are many reasons for this. My tastes have since diversified quite a bit, for one. Further, I usually drink wine with food these days, so I prefer wines that pair better with the food I eat. And ultimately, I think I burned out a bit on the big, oaky, jammy Zins of my youth.

Nevertheless, I'm not completely beyond the charms of a rich, viscous Zin, so I never pass the opportunity to go to Zap. Fifty bucks, all you can drink from hundreds of different Zinfandel producers. That's right, hundreds. This year there were over three hundred different wineries represented.

No wonder, then, that so many people show up for it. The picture you see above is only a third of one of the lines (there are two).

Last year I tried to make a brief note for every wine that I tasted. This is an exersize in folly at an event like ZAP. For one thing, it's a real pain to try to juggle your wine glass, your baguette (they give you one at the door), any cheese or other snacks you might have picked up, your digital camera (if you have to take pictures for your website), and a tablet and pen. As a result, you'll want to context switch as little as possible. Second, ZAP is mostly about fun. After a few tastes, you'll find it difficult to care whether or not the Zin you're tasting merits 2 1/2 stars or three full stars, or whether those are raspberries or loganberries you're tasting, or whether the finish is "moderate" or "full". Finally, after about an hour or two of tasting, your palate will be so numb that your glass could be half full of tar and it wouldn't stop you from having a good time.

So I adopted a different strategy this time:

  1. Only take notes on the wines that really knock your socks off, or are unique in some way. Otherwise, just drink and enjoy.

  2. Stop and talk to people. Talk to the pourers, especially at smaller wineries, where the person pouring your wine is likely to be the winery's owner or winemaker or both. Talk to other visitors. Exchange notes. This is very important, because you don't want to go to the same places year after year, but at the same time, there's too much cruft just to spend the whole day visiting wineries at random. Just a few conversations with right strangers, though, will net you enough suggestions to fill up the rest of your day.

  3. Don't be afraid to spit. There, I said it. Now generally, in wine drinking as in life, I fall on the swallow side of the spit-or-swallow controversy. But if you're going to be on the make for a full three and a half hours, as I was, you need to preserve some of your faculties. And quite frankly, half of the stuff you'll be drinking won't be that interesting. Save the brain cells for the wines that really turn you on.

  4. Give up on making it to all your favorite places. When confronted with the bustling crowds and the bewildering number of wineries, the temptation is to say "Oh -- Foofoo Vineyards. I like their stuff," and head over and taste a wine that you just had a whole bottle of two weeks ago. The best ZAP experiences are the new ones, where you taste something completely unexpected and new. Like I said in point #2, ask around. Ask the people pouring what they like. Ask the people around you. Chances are, you'll run across some great stuff -- maybe even a new favorite!

Spelletich

I had the opportunity to ask Timothy Spelletich how he got into the business. His reply:

I met this chick. [He gestured toward his wife.] I was managing Tra Vigne in St. Helena at the time. She was an assistant winemaker at St. Clement. We discovered that we shared a dream. After a few years and a lot of talk, the winemaker at St. Clement told us, 'You're ready'. 'No, no way,' we said. 'We have no money!' 'Don't worry about it,' he told us. Famous last words...we're still trying to pay the bills. And we don't have our own vineyards yet. And we use other people's facilities to process the wine. These things save us money in the short run, but over the long haul it's less efficient.

Still, Timothy remains optimistic. Things seem to be going well for them, and, as he says, "There's nothing else I'd rather do."

Timothy also had some interesting things to say about making wine in California:

In Northern California, it's easy to make good wine. Mother Nature makes it easy. As a wine producer, you just try not to mess it up. In France, you've got torrential rains. Here, if it sprinkles in September, everyone goes bonkers. In France, you've got hail to worry about. Here, it hails in May, where the primary effect is to lower yeilds -- exactly what growers and winemakers want! In France, you have seasonal flooding which threatens production. Here, it floods in January -- when no one cares. Now how hard is that?

You can read more about the Spelletichs here.

Tres Sabores

Julie Johnson Williams of Tres Sabores must definitely take the Purple Ribbon for Best Concept this year. Ms. Williams owns Johnson Ranch Vineyard in Napa Valley. The fruit from this vineyard used to go into Frog's Leap Zinfandels, which winery she co-owned. Recently Julie, as she puts it, "decided to downsize." She instead gave the fruit to three different winemakers to make three different Zins from. Hence, "tres sabores", or "three tastes".

What a concept! Drinking the three side by side allows one to sample the power that a winemaker's decisions have over the final product. And the wines themselves are great. The only downside is that there are only 700 cases en toto. So seek it out while you can, and buy one of each!


[A view of Alcatraz from Upper Fort Mason.]

Fun was had by all, or at least by me. Too bad ZAP is only once a year. But if you need your mass-tasting fix sooner, there's always Rhone Rangers, which tastes California wines using Rhone varietals such as Syrah, Grenache, and Viogner. It's somewhat smaller and more varied than ZAP. Don't miss it! Your tongue will thank you, even if your liver won't.

Some excerpts from my tasting notes:

2000 Titus Mendocino Redwood Valley Red fruit, softer than the Titus Napa Valley of the same vintage. "There's almost a grenadine flavor", says Phillip Titus, who poured my wine. "We added 15% Petite Sirah to darken the fruit a little bit." Only 600 cases of this available (as opposed to 2000 cases of the Napa Valley). They are, remarkably, the same price. $24 ****
2000 Renwood Grandpere Red fruit -- raspberries. Higher in pitch and thinner in tone than most of the wines you'll find at ZAP, Renwood's wines (and the Grandpere in particular) offer an interesting alternative. The Grandpere is in this case softer and more approachable than the Fiddletown, which Renwood is also serving up here. The Grandpere doesn't have the same rough kick on the finish that the Fiddletown does; instead it lingers softly on the tongue. $32 ****
2001 Truchard Zinfandel The 2000 was not quite as concentrated as I'd hoped for, but I liked the flavor a lot. The 2001 may improve upon it in both categories. Strong cigarbox and spice flavors and smells. This is a cigar-smoking wine if there ever was one. (Note that the price below is an approximation; this wine was not yet released at the time of tasting.) $30 *** 1/2
2001 Spelletich Alviso Vineyard Zinfandel (Note that this could have also been the Tim & Edie's Vineyard Shenandoah Valley Zinfandel. My notes are unclear on this point.) Huge and weirdly attractive. Spicy -- like a pepper -- as well as sweet, with a strong aroma of nutmeg & other earthy spices. Like having General Tsao's Chicken atop a slice of pumpkin pie. I feel strangely compelled to seek it out. $25 ****

January 31, 2003 in events, old_site, wine | Permalink

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