WTN: 2003 Seghesio Family Vineyards Zinfandel Home Ranch

• 2003 Seghesio Family Vineyards Zinfandel Home Ranch - USA, California, Sonoma County, Alexander Valley (8/9/2006)
  Ruby/purple in color, with nice berry notes on the nose. Medium to medium-full bodied, with lots of rasberries, blueberries, blackberries and toasty, smoky notes. I had this on the cool side, so there was no heat, and also few tannins. A nice explosion of berries on the palate, but rather straightforward in style. I was hoping for a bit more complexity and concentration for such old vines. (B+)

Big coincidence John. Just arrived home from an instore Zin tasting here in Edmonton! I will be posting some notes asap.
Big winners were...........

`03 Cape Mentelle Zinfandel,Margaret River, Aust.
`02 EOS Zin, Paso Robles.
`02 Sebastiani Old Vine Zin, Sonoma

I myself preferred the Sebastiani but you should have seen the Mentelle fly off the shelf after the tasting!!

[Jenise]

John, it's been my experience that old vines often give zinfandels a lot of weight, plus a pervasive black raspberry flavor (black raspberry is an uncommon fruit but it's spot-on the flavor of OV zin) note, both of which seem to rob the wine of the tangy, spicy complexity of it's younger cousins. Not a fan, you might not be either.

I used to be a Seghesio fan, but a few years ago, their prices and oak levels both went up, and looking in my spreadsheet, I no longer have any Seghesio zin! (My newest bottles were from the '01 vintage.)

I used to prefer their most generic, inexpensive, blue-capsule Zin, which was a good quaff at $10 - $12, but these days I seem to find better Zins for the $15 - $20 that they're getting for the cheap stuff.

And I've never thought their single-vineyard Zins offered good value, though they were sometimes interesting.

Black rasberries, eh Jenise? I've never tried them, so I didn't use that descriptor, but I could 'see' it being apropos for this wine: it definitely had an interesting mix of red and black berries. It had a touch of spicyness, but not much.

I certainly enjoyed the wine - it was well made, not too much oak, had nice balance, etc. - but it just was on the 'good' side of 'outstanding', if you know what I mean.

This bottle cost $45 in BC, so it wasn't exactly a good QPR wine. Have to agree with you there, John.

Bob, looking forward to your AB zin report. I often enjoy Cape Mentelle wines. Unfortunately in BC we only get their Sem/SB and the Trinders Cab/Merlot blends, while I'm most interested in their shiraz and cabernet. Do you get those in AB? Haven't tried their zin, but I'v heard good things about it in the past.