Oldest Living Wine Idiot Tells All
Written: Jan 21 '00 (Updated Jan 22 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: It was very dry and tasted like something relatively grownup
Cons: Kind of a tongue astringent
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| cornelia's Full Review: Gallo of Sonoma Zinfandel Frei Ranch Vineyard 1996 |
This is one of a series of reviews--the "Coast to Coast Wine Tasteoff." We all posted simultaneously on the same two wines. Please take a look at my fellow (and much more erudite) panel members' reviews if you want to know the real deal here:
Leah
BigBob51
PeterLRuden
Kimmiko
Mshawpyle
Sweetpaulie
Okay. Um. Gallo of Sonoma, like, zinfandel and stuff [shuffles notes]. I poured some into a glass and it was, indeed, a liquid.
I attempted a swirl, after drawing my living room curtains so the neighbors wouldn’t come stand outside beyond the shrubbery nudging one another in the ribs and hooting with laughter. I discovered, after a timid beginning, that I could indeed make it "dance" (see Wine Spectator, "The ABCs of Wine Tasting," Thomas Matthews, page 4) without actually slopping it all over the white cloth I put on the coffee table so I could check out the "hue, intensity, and clarity."
I checked it out and indeed, droplets were forming in the thin film on the sides of my incredibly ugly wineglass and running back down (college buddy Candace has broken all the nice ones I got as wedding presents from Tiffany’s slowly but surely over the years until all I have left are these "unbreakable" ones Aunt Julie got me from the Christmas Tree Store). Wow, I thought, "legs! It has legs!" This means more alcohol, according to my online wine mentor dude.
I looked at the color (deep red, verging on garnet, with a bit of blue to it—just what I like in a lipstick, actually—the tiniest bit of orange and I look like I have jaundice). The clarity was clear, all right—no suspended effluvium like that nasty lager I drank once in the Madrid train station. Then I immediately thought, man, these are the most buttugly wineglasses I have ever seen.
I was examining the glasses because I really, really, really wanted to put off the moment of truth—that smelling part. I mean, I can’t smell it when I’ve left the emergency brake on and my car’s on fire in light midday traffic, and I know that Leah’s going to be sitting there in front of her lime green Imac sniffing delicately at her Riedel glass designed exclusively for zinfandels grown on the middle of the third hill from the dry creekbed where T-Rex roamed wild and free in the Pleistocene era and which was harvested on an overcast Tuesday, going, "ah, I detect a hint of insouciant lavender beneath the leathery false bravado of this poignant but emasculated elixir, and I believe the woman who picked these grapes was lefthanded—possibly a Libra with a Scorpio rising…wait…yes, definitely AFL-CIO."
I mean, can I admit something really embarassing here? Lucy Ricardo’s feet know more about wine than I do—I probably couldn’t pass a blindfold test distinguishing between Vita-Meena-Vegeman and a rootbeer float.
But, oh yeah, back to smelling the zinfandel. I stuck my nose deep into the glass (after another good swirl—I’m getting proud of my swirls, here), and breathed in way way way deep. And it smelled like….wine. Kind of alcohol, but soft—not like a doctor’s office thing going on at all, but not fruity or anything—not very complex. Verging on maybe the faintest raisin kind of deal happening, but more like somebody’s just opened a bag of Three Castles rolling tobacco somewhere long ago and far away across the room, with kind of a leaf-mold walking through the trees to Walden Pond in late October kind of vibe to it—but faint faint faint behind the alcohol "it just smells like wine" thing, there.
So, moving on to the whole flavor part of the operation.... My hugely unsophisticated approach to wine is that the first yukkiest thing in wine that I would rate "first yukkiest" is sweetness. After that is sourness. If it’s not overpoweringly one of those things right off the bat, I figure I’m in luck that somebody blew more than six bucks on 750 ml and we’re safely out of communion wine/Manischevitz land.
I’m not a big tannin girl, though. I mean, I’d rather have something really tanniny than something that tastes like Jell-O, but oak is just not me. And that, pour moi, was a problem with this wine. One big swishy mouthful and my tongue sat up and said "hellooooo, who put the Stickley sideboard in here?" Oak, baby: A whole Arts and Crafts movement doing a clogdance on my tastebuds. Again, I have the palate of a hamster—subtlety is hard for me. I was getting that teensiest hint of Thoreau thing, that smoke from a distant fire wanting to make itself known, but it couldn’t get around the cottonmouth.
If the tannin stuff dies down over time, I guess this would improve with age, vis a vis depth and complexity, or perhaps there’s a whole "Horton Hears a Who" world of flavor going on that was too sophisticated for my appreciation—like maybe bats and dogs could taste it, kind of. But that’s basically all she wrote about what this particular wine and I got out of the mutual encounter.
Okay, now I’m thoroughly embarassed and will go drown my sorrows in chocolate milk… Oh yeah, as soon as I get to that Sauvignon Blanc thing…
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
cornelia
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 - Top 1000 |
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Member: Cornelia Read
Location: Berkeley, California
Reviews written: 100
Trusted by: 333 members
About Me:
Disorganized mother of twins by day, crime fiction writer by... um... day.
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