January 31, 2003
ZAP 2003
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:
Only take notes on the wines that really knock your socks off, or are unique in some way. Otherwise, just drink and enjoy.
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.
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.
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:
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:
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!
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 | |
| 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 | Comments (0)
January 06, 2003
the company party
I'm back in town, back at work, and blogging again. I have a few things to say about the holidays, but I realized that I haven't even had a chance to talk about the Company Christmas Party, which happened the day before I went out of town. I'll start there.
The Company Party
Our company party was remarkable for one reason: the wine. The standard Company Christmas party is dominated by people who, if they drink wine at all, feel perfectly comfortable ordering a glass of "the red", which they will inevitably remark is "pretty good" but "a little dry". If you have any taste for wine at all, you are faced with the unenviable task of choosing between the Talus Chardonnay and the Sutter Home Merlot. (The answer to this dilemma is clear: you drink beer.)
Not so this time. The president of our company is a big Burgundy fan, and he knows his wine. When I told him about The Wine House's 25th Anniversary sale, he went nuts. He and I and another wine fan from the company went together to buy wine for the party. When we got there, he said, "We each have $200 to spend. Go get the good stuff."
Mind you, our company only has 25 employees. Expected attendance at the party was less than 50 people. Not all of them are wine fans. In this circumstance, $600 can get you a lot of great wine.
And great wine was gotten. Burgundy was easily the most represented region, providing such wines as the 1999 Domaine Lamarche Grands Echezeaux and the 1998 Domaine Thierry Violot-Guillemard Pommard Rugiens. We also had some great Bordeaux whose names I regretfully do not remember. And there was a concession to California Cabs: someone (not me) bought a bottle of Silver Oak.
The big surprise for me came with the crab cakes. I love crab cakes, and ate them almost exclusively that evening, as there seemed to be a limitless supply. But the Burgundies and Bordeaux were an inappropriate pairing. Fortunately, the company president had had a bit more forethought that ourselves and purchased two bottles of a 1995 Puligny Montrachet -- $80 bottles that were on sale for $50 each. Incredible. Especially with the crab cakes. Fortunately for me, no one seemed to be drinking white wine (although I persuaded several people to try it), so I pretty much had it all to myself. I holed up in the corner, snarfing crab cakes and chugging Puligny Montrachet like I was on death row and it was my last meal.
I just wish I knew which Puligny Montrachet it was. On second thought, it's probably best that I don't know. I might start selling off things I need.
January 6, 2003 in events, old_site, wine | Permalink | Comments (0)
