Thursday, May 14, 2009

Ravenwood 2005 Old Vines Zinfandel (California)

I am just finishing a 3 day stint in Windsor where I was drinking (or better yet, tasting) all Canadian wine - so you don't think I am just some kind of alcoholic, I was judging at the All Canadian Wine Championships. During these days I taste a plethora of Canadian wine from coast-to-coast and from all makes and varieties, from sweet fruit wine, dry table wines, icewines you name it - if it is made in Canada, and some winemaker had the wherewithal to send in a few bottles, we tried it. So I have been a little lax in my what I'm drinking today wine blogging. Quite simply, the evenings are spent drinking and trying other wines that are too multitudinal to mention (I think I am going to try and patent that word "multitudinal"). Anyway, I am now in Warren (Michigan) and sitting outside on a patio with the wind is whipping me in the face. It's warm yet cool, if that makes any sense. I am sipping on this very nice and quite complex Zin out of Amador County - where I am told they make some of the best Zins in California - and I am in no place to argue because this one is quite nice. The smell is rich with vanilla, plum, cinnamon, chocolate, pepper along with whiffs of alcohol that also hit the olfactories every two or three sniffs (so I am not surprised to learn it is 15%). But the flavour does not speak of alcohol, which can be scary if you decided to drink a little too much; instead the taste is robust with black fruit and pepper along with plums and vanilla. It's quite smooth going in and through the mouth, with a nice fruit/tannin mix. Quite a change from all those Canadian wines - though there were a couple of Zins from B.C. that were quite lovely; maybe the desert of the Okanagan has found a new grape to grow. Come to think of it I have a couple of BC Zins - maybe that'll be next on my tasting list once I get home.

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