2004 Dashe Zinfandel, Dry Creek Valley, California, $23
On a whim I picked up this bottle the other day because Dashe is one of those producers I've long heard well of but never had a wine from.
Based on this bottle, I do not understand the accolades. I will give it one thing--it's textbook black raspberry flavor, a flavor rather typical of Dry Creek Valley zins. Black raspberry is a real fruit that I've only had once in my life, and when I did, I barked, "they taste like zinfandel!" I'd spent a few days wine tasting in Sonoma a few months prior, and had driven myself nuts trying to describe the unique fruit character, usually by way of combinations of berries that was very inexact. Tasting a real black raspberry solved the problem.
Anyway, that's what this wine tastes of and that's ALL it tastes of. No bramble, no spice, just black raspberry. It's also jammy, and the alcohol runs big legs on the glass but it's not high in taste or in the number on the bottle (somewhere in the low 14's), and there are almost no apparent tannins. And that's all there is to say about it, except that it costs too much for what it is.