Dave brought this to the tasting at John's ystrday:
1. Ridge Calif Zin CoastRange (6% PS; Bttld: APR 1975; 12.7%; Drk: ??:PD) 1973: Med.color w/ considerable bricking; rather smokey/cedary/pencilly/tobaccoy slight raspberry/Zin/earthy remarkably good/complex/oldZin nose; soft slightly dried out quite cedary/pencilly/tobaccoy/smokey/old Zin slight raspberry/Zin very gentle flavor w/ very light/gentle tannins; med.long light raspberry/Zin rather smokey/pencilly/oldZin/tobaccoy/cedary bit complex finish w/ very light/gentle tannins; a very quiet little old lady fading into the sunset; not an earth-shattering old Zin but still has a bit of fruit and not at all unpleasant to drink, just not very exciting; in amazingly good shape for a bottom-line wine.
$3.79 (LM)
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A wee BloodyPulpit:
1. In 1972, Ridge started producing a bottom-line wine that it labeled "CoastRange", from various vnyds from Paso up to Mendo. They even produced a CoastRange PinotNoir one yr. The program only lasted a few yrs.
We tried this '73 CR when it was released, liked it quite a bit, and they had a very good price at Boulder's LiquorMart. So I put together an order from my group...over 60 cs worth!! This was before "back up the truck" entered the wine lexicon. Rented a U-Haul trailer, hooked it up to my '68 DodgeDart, drove up and hauled the stash back to LosAlamos. At the time, it was legal to bring into NM a "reasonable amount" of wine from out-of-state for one's own consumption. I considered 64 cs pretty danged "reasonable". This btl was probably the last existing btl from that stash.
The label was very brittle/fragile from age and a part of it had broken off...so couldn't read PaulDraper's recommended drinking window. Pretty sure it'd expired by now, though. The label had fallen off the btl and was held on by a rubber band. The label had these bands of glue on the back of it. Back in those days, Ridge used a bottling line that used a hot-melt glue that was applied to the label, then slapped on the btl by this machine. In '75, when they were bttling up '73's, the btls were stored in a very cold area for one of the bottling runs. When they were stacked onto the bottling line, there was a lot of condensation of moisture on the outside of the btls by the time they hit the labeler. There was a wholesale "fall off" of labels from this run in each case. I remember, as I parceled out these CR Zins, many of the labels remained in the case & I had to tape them to the btls. Fortunately, most of my people were buying this wine in case lots..so they had to deal w/ the label "fall-off". A bit of Ridge trivia most folks don't know....only us old folks.
I told Dave the day befor to go ahead & bring this '73 CR, but also bring a backup because I was certain this low-level wine was totally dead&gone. When I decanted it, the browning color was confirmation of this prediction. But on the first pour & smelling the wine, we all opened our eyes in wonderment. There was still some life and a bit of fruit left here. The classic cedar/pencil of oldZin, but it was definitely not all tired & dried out on the palate...just the quiet whispers of a fading wine. Who'd have thunk!!! By the time I got the remains home several hrs later & tried it, it had turned a cloudy/murky brown and was pretty much dead&gone, that metallic/dried out character of an over-the-hill Zin.
Anyway...a neat trip down memory lane here.
Tom