COPIA Hosts R’s of Zinfandel Comp
46 Zinfandels are compared and rated by an 8-member tasting panel.
Which Zinfandels rated best of the 2004 vintage?
COPIA, the American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, located in the city of Napa, sponsored a comparative tasting of Zinfandels from producers whose names begin with the letter R. Co-sponsoring the event was Calhoun & Company, a San Francisco distributor.
Why only R Zinfandels? Because common wisdom and experience has led many of us to look for Zinfandels from those producers. Ridge, Ravenswood and Rosenblum specialize in Zinfandel and have consistently offered excellent examples. But should the list of R wineries be expanded to include, say, Renwood or Rancho Zabaco - also Zinfandel specialists?
It need not be said that there are superior Zinfandel producers whose winery names do not begin with R. Turley, Silver Stone, Marr, and Toucan come quickly to mind. But this comparative tasting was narrowly focused on the Rs.
The wines were presented in flights, each containing all the wines from a single appellation. Each wine was given a numerical rating by each taster without discussion and tabulated after the event. No taster was allowed to know the identity of any wine until the scores had been submitted.
The appellations covered were Alexander Valley, Russian River Valley, Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County, Sonoma Valley, Napa Valley, Sierra Foothills, Lodi and Paso Robles.
The distinctions of each appellation were clear. Wines from Sonoma Valley were clean, fruity and complex; Dry Creek wines all featured a distinctive minerality and caramel character; wines from Paso Robles were thick, rich, and mouth-filling.
The panel agreed that the 2004 vintage was weak across the board, but that the wines presented probably represented some of the best examples. The tasting results showed that the price of a wine is no clear indication of quality. Prices of the wines tasted ranged from $9.99 up to $55. (Neither of those wines made it to the top of the pile.) The average retail price of the top rated wines was $29.
The wines were not rated across appellations, so there was no single winner. The top producers turned out to be Rusina (Alexander Valley), Ravenswood (Russian River), Roshambo (Sonoma County), Reverence Carreras Ranch (Dry Creek), Rosenblum (Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley), Renwood (Sierra Foothills) and Ridge (Paso Robles).
An interesting sidelight: About a half-dozen wines were sent back for replacement due to cork taint. This is consistent with the often reported figure that around 5% of wines sealed with natural cork are likely to be affected. In spite of this, natural cork and cork-lined screwcaps continue to be the sealant of choice for fine wine.
