[wine] Zinfandel at Sapor on Thursday

Greetings, Bob's made the reservation for 8 to 10 people at Sapor, 6:30 p.m. on Thursday. $5 per person in lieu of corkage. Style du jour is Zinfandel. Food tends to be spicey. I'm certainly OK w/ either. Not sure what our arrangement w/ Sapor is or will be. I believe in the past we've paid $5 per person in lieu of corkage and I'm fine w/ that. Betsy Bob Russ Fred Janet Lori Jim Warren/Ruth Roger LeClair Bill Sobolewski Probably bob should up the reservation. We had great food at JP's last week. Cheers, Jim ----- Forwarded message from natdecants(a)nataliemaclean.com ----- From: natdecants(a)nataliemaclean.com To: natdecants(a)nataliemaclean.com Subject: Nat Decants: Zinfandel P.S. You can expect to receive your next newsletter Thursday, April 1. Nat Decants was named one of the three best food and wine newsletters at the James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards. March 25, 2004 A Multitude of Zins <http://www.thewineman.com/zap_crowd4.jpg> Hi Natalie, Love those zin, zin, zins! I'll be recommending a few in my wine picks next week. Also coming up in the newsletter: matching wine and cheese, cognac, vodka, whisky, wine scandals and Phoenix dining. For more articles and wine picks, visit <http://postsnet.com/r.html?c=299601&r=299048&t=77240828&l=1&d=85142700&u=ht tp%3a%2f%2fwww%2enataliemaclean%2ecom&g=0&f=85142705> www.nataliemaclean.com. Three wines to recommend this week all from the 2003 vintage: Speaking of zinfandel, here's a mouth-watering one from Rancho Zabaco ($19.95). This one has ripe blackberries and spicy goodness. Score: 87/100. Woolpunda Shiraz ($9.95): medium-full-bodied with stewed-ripe red plums. A simple wine but a great value. Score: 83/100. Hogue Pinot Grigio, Washington ($13): a vibrant, refreshing white with tree fruit and mineral zest. Lovely with a variety of dishes such as seafood and cream sauces. Score: 86/100. Fort Bend Wine and Food Affair, April 29-May 2 in Houston, features cooking demonstrations, gourmet and vintner dinners, wine tastings, a gourmet farmers market, guest chef book sales and signings and a grand finale bubbles and brunch. For info, visit <http://postsnet.com/r.html?c=299601&r=299048&t=77240828&l=1&d=85142699&u=ht tp%3a%2f%2fwww%2elocalwineevents%2ecom%2fHouston%2dWine%2fevent%2d20426%2eht ml&g=0&f=85142705> www.localwineevents.com/Houston-Wine/event-20426.html. Please let me know if your e-mail address is about to change or if you'd like to add a second address to receive the newsletter. (Some folks like to get it at both home and work.) If you've received this newsletter in error, or no longer wish to receive it, just click on unsubscribe at the bottom. I honor all unsubscribe requests. Please feel free to forward this newsletter to other wine lovers who might like to sign up. If you've recently suggested friends to me whom you'd like to receive it, thank you. You may want to check that they received their first one. I'm happy to exchange wine-related newsletter mentions and web site links. Have a great weekend! Cheers, Nat PS Some Internet viruses spoof legitimate e-mail addresses so that it appears that the message is coming from someone you know, like me! I want to assure you that my computer is virus free. I have expert technical help both in the latest anti-virus software and firewalls. <http://postsnet.com/r.html?c=299601&r=299048&t=77240828&l=4&g=0&f=85142705> Click here to send this to a friend. This doesn't sign up folks automatically, but does allow you to send the newsletter in tact and confidentially. Feature: Multitude of Zins To print a text-only version of this article, click here: <http://postsnet.com/r.html?c=299601&r=299048&t=77240828&l=1&d=85142701&u=ht tp%3a%2f%2fwww%2enataliemaclean%2ecom%2farticles%2fnew%5fworld%5fwines%5ftxt %2ehtml&g=0&f=85142705> www.nataliemaclean.com/articles/new_world_wines_txt.html. Zin, Zin, Zin ZINKIN, ZINZEN, ZINZEST: The licence plates in the parking lot warn me that this is no tweedy wine tasting. Closer to the wharves, a line of three thousand people, thick as an anaconda, snakes its way along San Francisco's waterfront. Behind them soars the Golden Gate Bridge; Alcatraz Island sits brooding in the distance; and the glinting bay is dotted with tiny tissue sails. But no one's admiring the postcard view: all eyes are fixed on the warehouse's paint-peeled doors, waiting for them to open on the Zinfandel Advocates and Producers tasting, the world's largest single-varietal wine event according to the Guinness Book of World Records. As the doors open, zinophiles surge forward into two football-field-sized buildings to taste the barrel samples. Vital attributes for this tasting are Teflon taste buds, sharp elbows and a talent for eavesdropping: every now and then, a buzz sweeps through the crowd, with feverish whispers about this or that new zin. The resulting rush in that direction is not unlike the stampede that ensues when K-Mart announces a Blue Light Special in aisle six. Many drinkers here are on a mission to find the Next Big Thing?before it's priced that way. The tables are lined up alphabetically by about 250 wineries?many of them family-run operations that produce only a few hundred cases a year. They're pouring some 500 different zinfandels for sampling by more than 9,000 attendees. That's up exponentially from the first tasting in 1992?which drew only 22 wineries and 100 participants. The thickest crowd presses in around the "R" section: Ridge, Rosenblum, Ravenswood, Rafanelli and Rochioli are some of the top-rated zin winemakers. Ridge is often considered the original zinfandel producer: winemaker Paul Draper was an early exponent of the wine in the late 1960s. When he accepted Decanter magazine's Man of the Year 2000 award, Draper said: "I'd like to thank zinfandel, without which I'm sure nobody would know who I am." Zinfandel has been called the world's most misunderstood grape. Until recently, many wine enthusiasts thought that the red grape could only produce a pink syrup, and didn't realize that it was also capable of creating dense, opulent, structured red wine. With 46,000 acres under vine, zinfandel now ranks second only to cabernet among red grapes in California. But even though zin has been a popular domestic wine for years, is not native to California. Zin's story is as American as the rags-to-riches characters in an E.L. Doctorow novel. Like the thousands of men and women who left their homelands and arrived at Ellis Island, the zinfandel vine is believed to have travelled in with early immigrant winemakers. A bastard child without old money or known European lineage, zinfandel wasn't even counted among the noble grapes such as chardonnay or cabernet. It had to work its way from the ground up. Its first test was Prohibition, and it passed Horatio-Alger style. Some growers sold zinfandel "must," the dried, compressed grape material in brick form to Italian families?warning that the brick should never come into contact with yeast, or wine might inadvertently result. Of course, most of those buying the bricks were home winemakers. Zinfandel's second saving grace, and its curse, was white zinfandel. In the 1970s, Bob Trinchero of Sutter Home decided to bottle and sell the clear run-off juice from pressing red zin. Customers complained that the resulting wine was too dry, so he sweetened it?and then could barely keep up with demand. Other wineries jumped on the bandwagon, but Sutter Home still leads the market: in 1999, it produced four of the twenty million cases of white zin sold in the U.S. Despite its popularity, though, white zin is still viewed as "industrial pre-mix" and "accessible"?the descriptive kiss of death among wine snobs. Some drinkers think of white zin as a transitional wine that bridges the taste gap between juice and soda pop, and dry table wines?including red zinfandel. According to Sutter's research, 60 per cent of drinkers stay with white zin, 20 per cent go on to other styles of wine and a disillusioned 20 per cent stops drinking wine altogether. It was the rise of white zin that, in 1991, motivated a small group of aficionados to establish Zinfandel Advocates and Producers or ZAP (www.zinfandel.org) an organization dedicated to restoring red zinfandel to its status as America's heritage grape. ZAP's informal motto became: "The first obligation of wine is to be red." Today, it's one of the largest consumer-based wine advocacy groups in the world, with some 6,000 purple-card-carrying members?a quarter of whom live outside California. (A support group for a grape?it could only happen in America. What might our Canadian equivalent be: Baco Buddies?) Even red zinfandel, though, is not hailed for its elegance: it's Caliban to burgundy's Ariel. With tooth-stripping alcohol levels of 17 per cent, many zins embody Ravenswood's motto: Nullum vinum flaccidum (No wimpy wines). The dense fruit and opulent texture of zin make syrup seem runny by comparison. As one vintner observed, aging zin in French oak is like putting perfume on John Wayne. The names also go for weight over grace: The Monster, Wild Thing, Monga Zin and Blockheadia. Other producers take a comic approach with names such as Victor Hugo, Commander Zinskey, Zin Man and Zebra Zin. The front label on Bonny Doon winery's Cardinal Zin label shows a cardinal spitting zinfandel; the back label describes the wine in terms of the "seven deadly zins," and suggests pairing the wine with game and other wild animals?including sloth. But whatever the experts' disdain for the pink stuff, people buy it and its popularity has helped to save old vineyards from being ripped up and replanted with the more fashionable chardonnay, cabernet and merlot. Part of the vine's success is that it seems to crop faster than ragweed: yields of ten to twelve tons per acre aren't uncommon. Cabernet, by contrast, yields only five to eight tons per acre. Zinfandel ripens early, albeit unevenly, and thrives even in hot sites?though it requires rigorous pruning, dry farming and coddling to get the low yields that produce more concentrated wine. Low-yield zinfandel gives one of the purest expressions of terroir?the reason that producers of fine wine designate the vineyard on the label. Rosenblum, for example, produces seventeen different zins, some in batches of only 75 cases. In fact, the single-vineyard system resembles Burgundy's small lots rather than Bordeaux's larger blends. Red zinfandel favours small producers, while many large operations focus on white zin. While zin is produced throughout California and in fifteen other states, its home is Sonoma's Dry Creek Valley?where many Italian immigrants first planted the vines, and where the densest concentration of old vines can still be found. Napa may claim cabernet, and Carneros pinot noir, but fine zinfandel thrives in its proximity to the Pacific Ocean. Warm days raise grape sugars and cool nights preserve acidity, slowing maturation for greater intensity and complexity. Sonoma also has more microclimates than Napa, resulting in many more styles of zin. The zinfandel vine is one of the few deliberately aged well past its prime?some are more than a century old. The gnarly, arthritic plants often appear in coffee-table books, in gauzy wine lifestyle ads, and on labels: many bottles at the ZAP tasting carry designations such as gnarly vines, knotty vines, century vines and ancient vines. Zin gets a longer lease on life than most vines. Bordeaux vineyards, for example, have to be replanted every 25 to 45 years; but many in the industry agree that it takes fifty years for zin grapes to develop the deep flavours that make the superior wine. As the vines age, their fruit becomes increasingly concentrated and imparts character to the wine. But old vines don't necessarily guarantee a better end product: some argue that it's not age that matters, but superior planting sites. Still, there are only a few hundred acres of old zin vines left in the world. James Wolpert, chair of the viticulture and oenology department at the University of California, Davis, established the Zinfandel Heritage Vineyard in the early 1990s as a vinous bridge to the past. He and colleagues planted six hundred vine cuttings, some more than a century old, in Oakville, California. Many were gathered on "Old Zin Safaris," on which the team drove around California in search of lost vines?often taking cuttings just ahead of the bulldozer. This Noah's Ark of vines will be cultivated to help future winemakers, and to preserve the diversity of zinfandel against the flood of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry wines. (Read: homogenous versions of cabernet, chardonnay and merlot.) It's the increasing rarity of old vines, and consequently the diminishing yields, that are driving up the cost of good zin. The hardest thing to swallow about zinfandel today is often its price. Once considered more affordable than most reds, zin is now becoming more expensive as it gains greater acceptance. Few wines at the ZAP tasting were less than ?15, and cult wines now easily cost more than ?35. Despite escalating prices-or perhaps because of them-the future of zin no longer seems in doubt. Last year, Canadian sales of red zin alone were 300,000 cases, up 26 per cent over the previous year, and 371 per cent since 1995. ZAP's tireless lobbying efforts, bolstered by higher-quality wines and increased presence on restaurant lists, has led the California legislature to designate zinfandel as the state's heritage wine. But the most compelling evidence of zinfandel's arrival as one of the world's great wines is here on the floor. While taking copious notes may be good form in the Christie's preview room or at a Bordeaux futures tasting, few are doing so at today's event. But the tasters' enjoyment is written all over their faces-and in their purple-stained smiles. ZAP 2005 The 14th Annual Zinfandel Festival will be held January 26-29, 2005. For more information, visit <http://postsnet.com/r.html?c=299601&r=299048&t=77240828&l=1&d=85142703&u=ht tp%3a%2f%2fwww%2ezinfandel%2eorg&g=0&f=85142705> www.zinfandel.org. Recent DNA Discoveries Where did zinfandel originate? Carol Meredith, professor of viticulture at University of California, Davis, initially thought zinfandel came from Italy-since the Italian grape primitivo and zinfandel are the same clone. However, primitivo only arrived in Italy recently, so it could not have been the ancestor of the zinfandel first planted in California 150 years ago. (But this didn't stop Italian vintners from recognizing zinfandel's success and trying to revitalize primitivo. In a reversal of traditional brand theft, several Old World vintners are now labelling their wines zinfandel to cash in on New World success.) Meredith now believes zinfandel is closely related to a Croatian grape called plavac mali, grown on the Dalmatian coast of the former Yugoslavia. She has found all the "brothers, sisters and cousins" of zinfandel, but continues to search for the original clone. She's now aided in this by recent advances in the science of vine DNA?akin to the human genetic techniques now used to identify criminals. Meredith is also making a genetic map of zinfandel-much like the larger map of the human genome. Aging Zin One of the marks of serious wine is that it ages well-up to several decades. However, fine red zinfandel hasn't been made long enough to know its potential after cellaring for many years. The zinophiles whom I was able to slow to a walking pace to chat with me at the tasting said they enjoyed their zins young and jammy. But this may have more to do with instant gratification than a preference for young wine. According to a Wine Spectator tasting of 37 zinfandels, varying in age from seven to ten years, the wines did not evolve to more complex character as do Bordeaux and Burgundies?but neither did they fall apart and become thin and insipid. They simply held their own. <http://postsnet.com/r.html?c=299601&r=299048&t=77240828&l=4&g=0&f=85142705> Click here to send this to a friend. This doesn't automatically sign up folks, but does allow you to send the newsletter in tact and confidentially. 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