Opened a FrancisFordCoppola Sante SonomaCoast PinotNoir '07 to go w/ my BarBQue Tofu Burnt Ends last night. It was dreadfully/dreadfully boring. So rummaged around in my back room and stunbled across:
1. Ridge Calif Zin PonzoVnyds (85% Zin, 14% PS, 1% Carignane; RussRvrVlly; 13.5%; Bttld:Jan'05; Drk: 11/04-11/07-11/11: JO/PD) 2003: Very dark color; beautiful licorice/peppery/spicy/blackberry/Zin light pungent/oak some piney/forest floor/coastal redwood forest very perfumed/fragrant complex lovely nose; soft slightly tannic beautiful tarry/pungent/licorice smooth rather spicy/blackberry/RRV Zin/peppery balanced complex flavor; soft/smooth/balanced lightly tannic spicy/peppery/blackberry/RRV Zin light tarry/pungent/licorice long/lingering complex finish; can still go another few yrs; a wonderful/mature Zin that speaks more of mature RRV Zin than of Ridge. ATP about $24.00
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A wee BloodyPulpit:
1. Ridge ATP: This wine was a great example of what frustrates me about the Ridge ATP program. I went back to my original notes of 8/24/05 when I tried just after release. I described it as a pleasant/simple raspberry Zin w/ some oak but on the light side and nothing that would probably go anywhere. So I just took my last btl and stuck it (upright) on a shelf in my back room and forgot about it. So here I stumble upon it 4 yrs later.
It had been standing upright in an uncontrolled environment all that time. The cork crumbled a bit as it came out so I punched the remainder into the btl and decanted thru a sieve.
With my first whiff, I realized that was something pretty good. This wine had put on considerable weight since its release. It had lost all the DraperPerfume and had evolved into a lovely example of a mature RRV Zin, like some of the Swans or the early DeLoaches had developed.
Like many of the Ridge ATP Zins upon release; there was nothing about this wine that suggested it had any potential. Probably only PaulDraper and certain Monkton attourneys could have predicted just how good this wine would evolve into. So often, those Ridge ATPs have this way of rising up, a few yrs down the road, and biting you on the a$$ with how good they are. Sometimes you just gotta trust.
I used to go round & round w/ Donn on the ATP Zins. I'd tasted one and send him my TN w/ the comment that this was just a pleasant wine but nothing distinguished and little potential. He'd just give me this fatherly look and admonish me to give it some time. And, often as not, Donn was absolutely right.
Frustrating, it is.
Tom