A couple of evenings ago, a friend brought over a bottle of 2002 Story Creekside Zin and I'd have to say that this is one wine a lot of you would love to hate. For starters, it weighs in at 16.9% alcohol and you can taste it (which isn't terribly surprising). There's a ton of red fruit and just detectible residual sugar. Huge, sweet, and way alcoholic, so what's to like? Well, I at least found it drinkable. The fruit character manages to stay in the red fruit/berry range without any of that raisiny/pruny overrpipe taste that many wines like this have. Despite the big, sweet, fruit, it had enough in the way of tannins and acidity to keep it from being fat and flabby. We had it with good takeout Mexican food and it wasn't too bad with my carne asada quesadilla. And it helped that there were five of us splitting the bottle.
So overall, it's not a wine I would buy but it's one I would accept a glass of if offered.
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