On Mon, 11 Jul 2005 19:29:58 +0200, Mike Tommasi >
wrote:

>On Mon, 11 Jul 2005 12:27:45 -0500, Mark Lipton >
>wrote:
>
>>Emery Davis wrote:
>>> Mike's other post gave me ideas...
>>>
>>> Adele is currently in SF for work, and can be persuaded to bring
>>> back 3 bottles of great CA zinfandel. (I guess she's not as strong
>>> as MT )
>>>
>>> I'm too out of the CA scene, even to know what the good current
>>> vintages are. So, help please!
>>
>>Emery,
>> You really can't go too wrong with current releases: 2001 and 2002
>>were both excellent Zin vintages and, while I haven't tried many '03s,
>>it should be very good as well. As for producers, there's the usual
>>suspects (Ridge, Ravenswood, Rosenblum, Storybook Mountain, Cline,
>>Biale, Seghesio) and the smaller producers (Zoom, Dashe, Fife) and the
>>more controversial (Turley, Martinelli). It might be educational to
>>pick 3 from different regions (Dry Creek/Geyserville, Amador, Paso
>>Robles, Napa) to investigate terroir in Zins. If she shops at K&L, she
>>might also find some aged Zins for sale: right now, they're selling some
>>older Biale Zins and quite a few aged Turleys.
>
>Mark,

You've got a menu of great and representative Zins for sure. I'd
definitely pick up a Ridge--the Geyserville never seem to fail and
recently the Paso Robles bottlings have been outstanding as well.

I've not had particularly good experiences with Ravenswood, although
some of the small vineyard bottlings are pretty good. It seems that
lately they've been doing (or at least I've been encountering) a lot
of high volume blended "regional" zins which aren't particularly
noteworthy.

Amador county is a very "hot" region--in the sense of producing some
exceptional examples, not particularly in reference to the climate. I
really like Renwood and both the Grandmere and Grandpere offerings are
exceptional.

Can't go wrong with Fife either--the Mendocino or Whaler.

If you find a Turley and can stand the tariff, you might buy it, if
only to say you'd done it once!


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com