Archive for July, 2015
My Kind Of Zinfandel
July 20th, 2015 | 
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2013 Ridge Paso Robles Zinfandel Benito Dusi Ranch, 100% Zinfandel, 14.8% alc., $26.99: I ran across four of these at an area Kroger store last week, so I dropped two in a mixed 4-pack for the discount, tried one a few nights later and went back for the other two the day after that. Here’s a perfect example of why I still love Zinfandel after all these years.
Clean and dark in color, with big, beautiful Draper perfume, all sweet oak in perfect proportion to the rich black raspberry, shaded with a hint o’ lavender. The luscious flavors echo boldly, with a wonderfully creamy texture that still can’t disguise the ample structure that will take this several years down the road in the cellar. Full bodied, with a nice long finish, where the tannins and a certain earthiness show themselves the most. Rich, ripe and gorgeous, with great balance, and, of course, it’s quite primary at this stage. Just a pleasure to sip already, but you know it’s going to get better with some age. I’d be wise to bury the other three so as not to touch them for a few years. We’ll see…
From the Ridge website: “Benito Dusi Vineyard grapes, hand harvested; destemmed and crushed; fermented on the native yeasts, followed by full malolactic on the naturally occurring bacteria; oak from barrel aging; minimum effective sulfur for this wine (35ppm at crush, 166ppm over the course of aging). Pad filtered at bottling. In keeping with our philosophy of minimal intervention, this is the sum of our actions.” Find this wine
Reporting from Day-twah,
Bastardo
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Two from Clos Cibonne
The first thing that caught my attention about the wines of Clos Cibonne were the lovely labels, with their classic old style and grace. I saw one on a retail shelf last autumn, but didn’t get around to trying any until late May, and since then, we’ve become more and more delighted with them. We’re no strangers to the wines of Côtes de Provence, but we’d never tried anything (that we know of) that was so predominantly composed of the Tibouren grape. More usually employed as a blending grape with such varieties as Grenache and Cinsaut to make rosé, it takes on a much more dominant role in the wines of Clos Cibonne.
The character of both of these wines is obviously a direct reflection of the character of the Tibouren grape itself, and we really like what we taste in them. We got our first taste of the rosé courtesy of our way cool wine buddy Rebecca Poling.
2013 Clos Cibonne Côtes de Provence Cuvée Tradition Rosé, 90% Tibouren, 10% Grenache (sourced from 30+ year old vines), 13.5% alc., $25.99: Pale rose petal pink with a tinge of orange; mineral driven peach and watermelon flavors and aromas, and, at first, you can almost taste those 100-year-old foudres. As it opens and warms in the glass, more of the old wood and old school character emerges, and I like it even better. Fairly rich and ripe, more so than some we’ve had from Provence; medium-to-medium full bodied, with ample acids and good length. This is priced at the upper limit of what we’re willing to pay for rosé (we don’t buy Tempier anymore), and it’s worth every penny. We’ll drop a few more in a mixed 6-pack for the discount and enjoy again. Tasted three times with consistent impressions. The wine was aged on the lees for 1 year in those 100-year-old foudres. Find this wine
This next selection is described as “Clos Cibonne’s easy drinking red,” but, as much as I enjoy it now, it seems to show good aging potential as well.
Three Late Model Tablas Creek Whites
By now, regular readers might recognize that we are big fans of all things Tablas Creek Vineyards, and we’ve made no secret of the fact that Vineyard Brands sends us samples of their wines periodically for review. The first two whites in this report came to us in the same package as the two rosés we told you about in late April, but, as is sometimes the case, we took our sweet old time getting them. We finally opened both on successive evenings last week, and, not surprisingly, we quite enjoyed them both. Here are my impressions of each.
Three From Tom Gore
I had a great opportunity to sample three wines from Tom Gore Vineyards. Tom Gore was and still is a Californian farmer who has recently added wine making to his curriculum vitae by making what he sees as farm to glass wines.
Gore comes from a family with a long history of growing grapes in Sonoma Valley, but is the first of the family to venture into taking his juice a few steps further by turning it into wine of his own. His twenty year career began at the age of seven. Slave labour no, just a kid showing interest in what his father and forefathers have done for decades to make a living.
Gore studied at Cal Poly, where he earned a degree in fruit science then teamed up with Gary Sitton of Clos du Bois notoriety to start producing his brand of wines. Here are my impressions of these three.
