Wine & Spirits - February 2012 - (Page 36)

YEAR’S BEST ZINFANDEL Our blind panels tasted 287 new-release zinfandels over the past 12 months. Our critic for California, Joshua Greene, rated 33 as exceptional (90+) and 13 as Best Buys. Find a complete list of wines tasted and all reviews at wineandspiritsmagazine.com. anced, sophisticated and elegant, this gains with air and would be delicious with simple roast leg of lamb. (W&S, 10/11) Storybook Mountain Vineyards, Calistoga, CA 415853 | Green & Red $ 415817 | Black Sears $ 2009 Howell Mountain Napa Valley Black Sears Vineyard Zinfandel Jerre Sears and his family dry farm 17 acres of zinfandel on their ranch, at 2,400 feet on a northeast-facing saddle of Howell Mountain. The vines, planted in 1975, have earned recognition over the years in vineyard designates from Turley, D-Cubed and HMV. In 2009, their own zin is about as sunny and glorious as a Napa red can be. It’s a big wine that’s tightly formed, clearly delineated by its structure. The black tannins yield mineral scents, black mushroom savor and forest spices that wander in all directions as the wine opens up with air. Delicious and compelling when ﬁrst opened, this keeps getting better over the course of several days, suggesting how well it will handle a decade of age in the cellar. Or decant it now for seared ﬁlet of beef with a Port wine reduction. Black Sears Winery, Angwin, CA 2009 Napa Valley Chiles Canyon Vineyards Zinfandel (Best Buy) Pam and Jay Heminway started planting their 200-acre estate in the eastern hills of Napa Valley in 1972. They now farm 31 acres in three sites, ranging in elevations from 1,000 to 1,700 feet. Their sensible and sensitive approach to farming and winemaking has made a slightly diﬀerent version of this cuvée a favorite at Chez Panisse, where it has been the house red for more than a decade. Their 2009 is a violet and black cherry-scented beauty, held in a tannic structure that will reward ten years of bottle age. The freshness is there to enjoy it now—the wine has a way of leaving the mouth feeling clean, a sensation associate editor Luke Sykora described as “fresh rain evaporating oﬀ a stone.” Decant it for grilled quail. (1,800 cases) Green & Red Vineyard, St. Helena, CA scents and savory, earthen tannins of this wine seem to be all about that Dry Creek soil. The foresty, black cherry fruit contrasts that rasp of tannins and makes the wine mouthwatering with its zesty freshness. For grilled eggplant with baby lamb. (880 cases) Truett Hurst Winery, Sebastopol, CA 415796 | Carol Shelton $ 2006 Dry Creek Valley Bacchus Laureate Reserve Zinfandel Selected from the Maple and Florence vineyards, with a small portion of Russian River Valley fruit, this blends zinfandel (88 percent) with syrah, petite sirah, carignane and alicante bouchet. It’s fresh and bright, with a classical Dry Creek Valley zinny ﬂoral scent. The fruit bridges forest mushroom ﬂavors and zesty purple berry richness, which Shelton manages to combine with equally supple tannins, using the structure to frame the character of the place. The tannins in the wine need something fatty, like a well-marbled prime rib. (316 cases) Carol Shelton Wines, Santa Rosa, CA | Collier Falls $ | Hendry $ | Storybook Mountain $ 2008 Napa Valley Mayacamas Range Zinfandel There’s something about the way zin ripens in the east-facing hills north of Calistoga that appeals to me in my gut as much as in my brain. It has the freshness of blackberries picked on a hike in Point Reyes. That wild berry ﬂavor tinges toward brighter fruit, layering vibrant strawberry, tart raspberry and cracked black pepper into a savory Napa Valley red. Yum may not be a technical term, but I wrote it twice in a 20 wine tasting, once for this wine and again for Storybook’s Antaeus, a zin-based blend. Bal36 W I N E & S P I R I T S F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 2 2007 Napa Valley Hendry Blocks 7 & 22 Zinfandel This grows on nine acres of benchland west of Napa, one sector planted in 1975, the other in 1995. It’s a heady wine, as fat in the middle as a plump Napa Valley cabernet with distinctly zin-like ﬂoral notes of hibiscus, along with smoked paprika. There’s tension to the structure, girding the wine for bottle age, though it’s delicious to drink now: a vibrant red for venison roasted with black cherries. (2,000 cases; W&S, 10/11) Hendry Ranch, Oakville, CA 415268 | Truett Hurst $ 2009 Dry Creek Valley Rattler Rock Zinfandel (Best Buy) This partnership includes Paul Dolan and Phil Hurst, who began working together at Fetzer in the late 1970s, as well as Dolan’s son, Heath, and Hurst’s wife, Sylvia. They purchase fruit for this zin from a vineyard above the valley ﬂoor in the northeast corner of Dry Creek Valley. The juniper 2007 Dry Creek Valley Private Reserve Zinfandel Barry and Susan Collier purchased their vineyard from Ferrari-Carano Winery in 1997, ﬁve years after Susan had moved to Santa Rosa to study viticulture. Barry, a retired ﬁlm producer, still farms the vineyard, although Susan suﬀered from ALS and passed away in 2007—a vintage commemorated in this exceptional zin. Grown on a southeast-facing hillside above the morning fog and shaded from the afternoon sun, this wine sustains a refreshing herbal character in its fruit. The complexity of the wine is built on zin’s foresty red berry and blackberry ﬂavors, cast out into a long arc that coasts through scents of porcini, cedar, strawberries and freshly turned earth. All of those elements relate back to the wine’s mineral essence, the tight structure that provides staying power. This should live on for a decade or more. (750 cases; W&S, 8/11) Collier Falls Vineyard, Geyserville, CA http://www.wineandspiritsmagazine.com http://www.blacksears.com/Wine-Shop

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - February 2012

Wine & Spirits - February 2012
Editor’s Note
Happenings
Contents
Fined & Filtered: Sake Post-Tsunami; Aussies crack the Brett code; the Historic Vineyard Society.
Spirits: New Digestivi, by Lou Bustamante
Wines of the Pacific
Red Rising
Yarra Shiraz
Snowmelt & Chalk
Anatomy of a Field Blend
Extreme Values
Tastings Overview
American Zinfandel
American Syrah
New Zealand Pinot Noir
Rhône Wines
Catalan Wines
Chilean Cabernet & Blends
Argentine Malbec
American Wines
Imported Wines
Books: Winter Reading

Wine & Spirits - February 2012