WTN: What do you think about Zin blends?

Deep ruby red. Dark fruit nose with notes of black raspberry and blackberry. Sumptuous midpalate with smooth tannins, black fruit especially blackberry and black cherry, and juicy acidity. Medium to long finish of bramble fruit, acidity and just enough tannic kick to balance out the wine. Medium to full bodied wine.

With food: Nice match with slow-roasted beef roast smothered in gravy. Better match, believe it or not, with the salad, of gorgonzola, walnuts, pears and balsamic vinagrette on mixed greens. The gorgonzola and walnuts really accentuate the sweet fruit in the wine. The pears were neutral to distracting.

Wine: Trentadue Old Patch Red, 2006 North Coast. 14.2% abv. Mix of 46% Zinfandel, 35% petite sirah, 12% Carignane, 5% Sangiovese, and 2% syrah.

I really like this wine and thought it better than most zins I have had and, in terms of overall quality, on par with the best Turley zins I have tried. Seemed to be a really good match with most of the food we had tonight, except the carrots.

Which do you like better? Zins or Zin blends, and why?

Tom,

My favorite Zins are:

Cosentino Winery The Zin which is 100% Zinfandel

Frank Family Napa Valley Zinfandel, I can not prove if its 100% Zin or a blend

Bogle Phantom , which is Petite Sirah 49% - Zinfandel 49% - Mourvèdre 2%

Prisoner, Napa Valley, 51% Zinfandel .19% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Syrah, 7% Petite Sirah, 3% Charbono, 1% Grenache, 1% Malbec

I listed those in the order of being my favorite Zins.... So, I guess I am sort of mixed. Overall I like wines that are blends. To me, they just bring more excitement to the table.
Not to say that one single grape can not stand on its own, but its those little curves and twists that I love about blends

Don't like Zins, tolerate Zin blends slightly more just because there are other grapes in there that aren't Zinfandel (hence why I don't have such a problem with Ridge Lytton Springs).

Tom, I am also not a big zinfandel fan especially since the best ones compete price-wise with high quality Cabs. but I would chose a pure Zin. over a blend to just sip and contemplate. The Old Patch Red, which I used to drink regularly, reminds me of the Marietta Old Vine Lot 52 I had yesterday. An extremely pleasant quaffer red that is well balanced and great with pizza or spaghetti but without any varietal signature or need to contemplate. By the way ,one of the greatest wines I have ever had was the 1976 Montelena Zin in 1990 which I now recognize closely resembled a nice old Bordeaux.

Tom, I am also not a big zinfandel fan especially since the best ones compete price-wise with high quality Cabs. but I would chose a pure Zin. over a blend to just sip and contemplate. The Old Patch Red, which I used to drink regularly, reminds me of the Marietta Old Vine Lot 52 I had yesterday. An extremely pleasant quaffer red that is well balanced and great with pizza or spaghetti but without any varietal signature or need to contemplate. By the way ,one of the greatest wines I have ever had was the 1976 Montelena Zin in 1990 which I now recognize closely resembled a nice old Bordeaux.

Hi Jim,

I am not a big zin fan either, as I just drink them once in while. I liked this zin blend because it had more complexity than most zins I have had but still had that nice dark brambly fruit. It was also fairly low in alcohol for a CA zin. The Turley zins and the best Seghesios I have had are similar quality if not a little better than this blend. I just bought some Ridge zin blends and I am just starting to explore them, so I am easily impressed at this stage. I may have a different opininon after I have tried a few more and compared them. I suspect that these zin blends may age better than straight zins too, but that is hard for me to judge.

I love Zin but am not "a big Zin fan" either. Don't have a preference probably because there aren't that many Zin blends around other than some old vine field blends. David Coffaro in Dry Creek does some nice ones.

Different story with Cab and blends as I usually prefer the blends for the added complexity.

Trentadue's Old Patch is a great deal as I usually see it for under ten bucks.

Tom, I am also not a big zinfandel fan especially since the best ones compete price-wise with high quality Cabs. but I would chose a pure Zin. over a blend to just sip and contemplate. The Old Patch Red, which I used to drink regularly, reminds me of the Marietta Old Vine Lot 52 I had yesterday. An extremely pleasant quaffer red that is well balanced and great with pizza or spaghetti but without any varietal signature or need to contemplate. By the way ,one of the greatest wines I have ever had was the 1976 Montelena Zin in 1990 which I now recognize closely resembled a nice old Bordeaux.

Hi Jim,

I am not a big zin fan either, as I just drink them once in while. I liked this zin blend because it had more complexity than most zins I have had but still had that nice dark brambly fruit. It was also fairly low in alcohol for a CA zin. The Turley zins and the best Seghesios I have had are similar quality if not a little better than this blend. I just bought some Ridge zin blends and I am just starting to explore them, so I am easily impressed at this stage. I may have a different opininon after I have tried a few more and compared them. I suspect that these zin blends may age better than straight zins too, but that is hard for me to judge.

Tom and others, might be worthwhile to have an Open Mike eh? I would be quite happy to set it up.

Bob

I love Zin, but don't often get to drink it.

I have for many years believed that it is even better with the addition of a little Petite Sirah.

I don't dislike zins, in general but a glance in the cellar shows no zins in stock. Several that I've had in the past were unbalanced and heavy weighted on the alcohol side (~17%!), almost a fortified wine. I did have a glass of zin at dinner out over the weekend at a new local eatery but that was only because I did not see anything else. To me, blends are better as there are a few of the Bogle Phantoms on my shelves.

Ridge makes the only zin blends I buy with some frequency (and I like them with six or more years of age.) Usually I buy Zinfandel that is labeled as such and must have at least 75% of that grape variety--Eric Ross, Casa Carneros, Seghesio, Lambert Bridge, Rosenblum, Biale, etc. I've gotten away from ordering as much Zinfandel as I used to--partly because of the ever higher alcohol proportions but also because I find other wines more interesting to me and can't purchase everyting.

I have no answer. Same applies to Bordeaux.

I have more Ridge Geyserville in my cellar than any other wine and I could care less if a particular Geyserville has 90%, 70% or 50% Zin.

Whether the blends are better than 100% pure Zin is something I leave up to the winemaker to choose for me.
The Trentadue OldPatch is, to my understanding, a field-blend. The grapes from the very old OldPatch are all picked at
one time from this mixed planting and fermented together...the way the old Italian farmers used to do it when they
interplanted those vnyds in the first place. So those blends vary from yr to yr, depending how much each variety produces.
And those %'s are only approximate, usually based simply on a vine count.
The Ridge Geyserville comes from an old block on the Trentadue Ranch that is a mixed-planting block. It is substantially
a field-blend (all the grapes are picked at once and fermented together), but they pick it as several blocks and then blend those
blocks together, with each block having different %'s of each variety. Again, I'm pretty sure those %'s are based on a vine-count,
then adjusted to reflect the %'s from each block. And, then, I'm pretty sure they will tweak the final blend w/ non-Geyserville wine
to get the final blend they think is the best.
(Beni) DusiRanch in Paso is planted to 100% Zin and that's always been their only pure/100% Zin. I noticed the '09 we tasted
several weeks ago had 5% PetiteSirah added to it, for the first time in my recollect. Did this make the '09 Paso Zin a better wine
than ever before?? Not that I could tell. I'd have had to taste the 100% Zin afore I could say the wine was improved by the 5% PS addition.
Ridge has traditionally added PS to their Zins to darken the color and give them a more tannic backbone. Because of that, it has
pretty much become the custom for many wineries to tweak their Zin w/ PS additions. Do these additions make for a better Zin??
Beats heck out of me.
Tom

I generally prefer Zin blends to straight Zin. Much as with Rhone and Italian blends, the wine gains in liveliness and complexity. Many California Zins contain Petite Sirah, Syrah, Carignane, Cabernet Sauvignon and probably odd bits of other grapes. Partly it's the tradition of field blends, and partly it's that the admixtures really do improve the wine.
David Coffaro makes 100% zin, a field blend (Block 4) which is similar to the Trentadue and Ridge Geyserville, and usually a deliberate blend ("My Zin"). It's fun to compare them year by year, though you do have to be aware of David's own particular winemaking tastes.

John

Those Cali Zin/kitchen sink blends are very rarely succesful in my mind, to the point that I don't really understand why they have a market - the problem is not the gobs of jammy fruit, but that they don't have coherent structure or depth, and quite frankly taste like muts, and ill-conceived ones at that. Phantom is definitely the best I've had.

I do love a good Old Vine Zin though.

Those Cali Zin/kitchen sink blends are very rarely succesful in my mind, to the point that I don't really understand why they have a market - the problem is not the gobs of jammy fruit, but that they don't have coherent structure or depth, and quite frankly taste like muts, and ill-conceived ones at that.
I do love a good Old Vine Zin though.

And most OldVine Zins, Ryan, are field-blends, whether labeled as such or not.
I tend to agree...most kitchen sink blends are rarely successful. But I think most Zinfandel producers who are
serious about that grape put a lot a thought into their blends. With varying degrees of success, obviously.
Tom

Those Cali Zin/kitchen sink blends are very rarely succesful in my mind, to the point that I don't really understand why they have a market - the problem is not the gobs of jammy fruit, but that they don't have coherent structure or depth, and quite frankly taste like muts, and ill-conceived ones at that.
I do love a good Old Vine Zin though.

And most OldVine Zins, Ryan, are field-blends, whether labeled as such or not.
I tend to agree...most kitchen sink blends are rarely successful. But I think most Zinfandel producers who are
serious about that grape put a lot a thought into their blends. With varying degrees of success, obviously.
Tom

Just to be clear, I'm refering only to the kitchen sink blends . . . . not to varietal Zin's that happen to be field blends or regional blends or what have you.

I am also not a big zinfandel fan especially since the best ones compete price-wise with high quality Cabs.

Jim,

This comment surprised me. I've never seen a Zin over $45-50 and I've seen plenty of Cabs well north of $100. Are there $100+ Zins that I don't know about because they don't make it to Massachusetts?

I am also not a big zinfandel fan especially since the best ones compete price-wise with high quality Cabs.

Jim,

This comment surprised me. I've never seen a Zin over $45-50 and I've seen plenty of Cabs well north of $100. Are there $100+ Zins that I don't know about because they don't make it to Massachusetts?

I totally agree with you Tom. I live in the land of high quality cabs and I'm not aware of any Zins that live in that neighborhood.

Tom and others, might be worthwhile to have an Open Mike eh? I would be quite happy to set it up.

Bob

Hi Bob,
Sounds like a good idea to me. Go for it, and set it up.

If you truly think about it and you believe in “terrior” (where every square inch of soil could possesses its own “unique climat”) all wines are “blends”.

Salute

It just seems to me that SO MUCH happens between growing the grapes and the glass of wine that I drink 10+ years later that there are many many more important things that impact the pleasure of the wine drinking experience than whether my Geyserville is 90% Zin or 75% Zin or my Lynch Bages is 85% Cabernet or 70% Cabernet.

I'm sure Paul Draper could taste 20 vintages of Geyserville blind and put them in order of highest % Zin to lowest but I can't do that and even if I could it may bear no resemblance to my rank order of quality/pleasure of those same 20 wines. My top 2 favorites of the 20 could be the one with the highest % Zinfandel and the one with the lowest % Zinfandel.

Tom and others, might be worthwhile to have an Open Mike eh? I would be quite happy to set it up.

Bob

Hi Bob,
Sounds like a good idea to me. Go for it, and set it up.

I will try soon. Right now I am organizing an outing for inner-city school kids, 7 buses in total!!

If you truly think about it and you believe in “terrior” (where every square inch of soil could possesses its own “unique climat”) all wines are “blends”.

Salute

Depends on how you define blend. My definition is that blends are a mix of different grape varieties. Your definition obviously includes any grapes different from any other grapes due to environmental differences.

used to like zin. don't like zin. sweet, overripe plonque.