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Nothing shows yo mama that you truly appreciate her more than cracking open six bottles of high alcohol zinfandel on Mother’s Day and proceeding to get the immediate family shit stupid drunk. Being the thoughtful sons that we are, my younger bro and I gathered together a collection of higher end Zins (6), brown bagged ‘em, and set up a six person blind tasting. The six beverages imbibed were: (1) Seghesio Home Ranch Zin 2003 , (2) Rosenblum Carla’s Zin 2003, (3) Rosenblum Rockpile Road Zin 2003, (4) Rosenblum Rockpile Road Zin 2002, (5) Ridge Spring Mountain Zin 2002, (6) Beauregard Beauregard Ranch Zin 2002.

At first glance upon this review you may shake your head. Who is this bastard with the funny name, and why is he reviewing six wines in one post?! Well (1) fuck you, and (2) I’ll do what I want, how I want, because some yahoo decided that I could handle the responsiblity that comes along with admin privileges. I tend to be opinionated, drunk, lazy, and opinionated some more. Nice to meet you too. Back to the wine.

The Seghesio Home Ranch Zin 2003 ($25.99) from the Alexander Valley was an impressive wine. The nose on this wine showed red berries, chocolate and some spice. This is a Zinfandel for the sonofabitch snobs that cry about zins being out of balance or “hot” on the finish. This wine counters its 15%+ alcohol with flavors of raspberry, chocolate, and spice (clove?); smooth (but noticeable) tannin, and a long finish. I made this wine my drinker with dinner, ricotta gnochi with sage and marinara (being one of the chefs I score the meal 96/100). I felt this wine was one of the top two or three, although only one other person agreed with me, bastards. The group scored this wine a solid 91 points, I would say 92-93 points, and since I am writing the review they can kiss my ass.

The Rosenblum Carla’s Zin 2003 ($19.99) from the San Francisco Bay in Contra Cosat County was a little disappointing for me. I must add the disclaimer that in several previous vintages this has been my favorite Zin in terms price/quality. I plan on downing one of these (all by myself) in a year or so to see if it has integrated further. Group impressions were tart dried fruit characteristics with an abundance of oak, and we generally agreed that this wine was disjointed. Nobody picked this wine as their Wine Of The Night (WOTN). Group score range 85-88 points, with the potential to be better with time.

The Rosenblum Rockpile Road Zin 2003 ($19.99) from the Dry Creek Valley does California wine proud. This is why people drink Zins!! I predict this is what Robert Parker will say: “Profound black fruits with vanilla on the entry, that are smoothly integrated on the midpalate with tannin, spice, and oak; and a 30 second + finish. 93-96 points. May improve with a year in the bottle , but great already. Drink 2005 -2010.” On the subject of reviews, everybody’s favorite bathroom reader/toilet paper substitute The Wine Speculator just gave this fuckin wine 94 points, ruining our chance of finding this gem again, at least at the regular price. My advice/strategy: buy up every copy you can and burn the mofos. This probably means the release price for the wine will jump into the thirties for next vintage!%$%##@%^*&$%!! Group score 91-95 points. For three out of six people = WOTN. With a clear conscience I rate this wine 93-95 points and see it being better a year from now, not that I’ll have that chance.

The Rosenblum Rockpile Road Zin 2002, ($19.99) Dry Creek Valley did not seem to be the wine it was a year ago when I felt it was 91-92 points. The fruit has faded on the nose and palate, making it seem over oaked. If you can get past the oak you can remeber why you bought several of these: tasty, spicy fruit. If you have em, drink em!! Group score 87-89 points. I will concur, so as not to seem like the egomaniacal contrarian that I am.

The Ridge Spring Mountain Zin 2002 ($19.99) sucked ass when I first tasted it. I remember wondering to my drunken self: “Self, did you stick a four dollar bottle of chianti in the zin tasting as a ringer?” This seemed dry and tannic, showing no fruit. Before you get angry about me trashing the people who put Cal Zin on the map, realize that by the end of the night, this Zin was solid, fruity, and completely different. I remeber some pretentious fuckwad telling me that Ridge zins still age well. Based on the amount of air this wine neede to open up, the fuckwad might have been right; no lucky. Group score range(initial) 70-80 points. Group rescore 89-91 points. My Pop’s co-WOTN. Solid 90 points for me, and maybe better down the road.

The Beauregard Beauregard Ranch Zin 2002 ($25.00) was a different beast from the rest of the zins. Made by acquaintance Ryan Beauregard in the Santa Cruz Mountains, this is a cool climate zin that lacked the viscosity shown by some of the other zins. I did not know what to think of the 17%+ alcohol of this baby. The group agreed that the flavors were “cherry pie like” with sweet/sour cherries, cinnamon/nutmeg, and none of the hot/alcohol flavors that I anticipated. Very different, quite enjoyable. Group score range 88-91 points. My score 90 points. Nicely done Ryan. (I recently heard Ryan pulled these ancient vines out in favor of more cab, so enjoy it if you have it!)

As a side note to this rambling rant, most of the the group concurred that six bottles of zin for six people is ludicrous. I of course disagreed with a sloppy comment about “sucking it up, and what the fuck happened to this family.” My brother went home and told his neighbor that he will throw him off the balcony if he ever causes a scene again. I told my wife that it isn’t fair that her palate and her notes are more precise than mine, she called me a whiny drunk, and then beat me. My soon to be sister in law couldn’t get up for work the next morning. And fun was had by all.

(6 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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