Morning all,
 
Its… Wine of the Week!

Simon’s Wine of the Week is 770 Miles Zinfandel
 
This week’s wine is an American Zinfandel. Not a rosé Zinfandel though, a lovely bold in-yer-face red Zinfandel.
 
We’ve discussed Zinfandel before in Wine of the Week as it is the same grape as Italian Primitivo (although it’s originally from Croatia where it is known as Crljenak Kaštelanski). Zinfandel is the American name for the grape and is most famous for a sweet pink wine. White Zinfandel (which is most definitely pink) was invented by mistake back in the 1970’s. Originally a dry rosé made by Sutter Home Winery, a fortuitous mistake back in 1975 meant one batch of wine didn’t fully ferment (or as we call it, a ‘stuck fermentation’). This meant that the yeast hadn’t fully turned the sugar into alcohol, so the wine was sweeter and had a lower ABV. In a case of ‘waste not, want not’ they decided to bottle the wine and sell it – and it sold! It became an overnight success and White Zinfandel was born.
 
This success meant that Zinfandel suddenly became fashionable. Thousands of acres of Zinfandel vines that would have been ripped out to make space for more trendy grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay were saved. These vines had been in the ground a long time which meant that California was sitting on a gold mine of something that winemakers all over the world crave – old vines. And old vines generally mean quality. If handled right these gnarly old plants can give amazing concentration and complexity to a wine, albeit with a drop in yield. Basically, the older the wine, the smaller the harvest, but the greater the quality.

 
Despite the success of White Zinfandel, a few winemakers stuck with making red wines. And the reputation of these wines grew and grew – big, bold, heady wines made more concentrated harvested from old vines. These days those reds are Zinfandel’s flagships. Whilst White Zinfandel is still popular, sales are on the wane, and more and more drinkers are being seduced by the red version.
 
I had the 770 Miles Zinfandel at a blind tasting for customers at one of our accounts. It was an instant hit with the punters, and the wine bar put it straight on their wine list there and then.
 
As you would expect it is a big, intense wine. On the nose it has powerful aromas of dark fruits, think blackberry, blueberry, blackcurrant, with a whiff of smoke and vanilla backing it up. The palate is big. Really big. Loads more black fruits flood the mouth and do backflips down your throat. Layers of vanilla, sweet spice, cedar and earth add lovely complexity. A veritable beast of a wine.
 
In terms of food matching this is a must with a Barbecue. It’s also great with a ‘dirty’ burger, meaty pasta sauces, chilli con carne (or its veggie ‘sin’ carne), portobello mushrooms or anything with a black bean base.
 
Have a great week,
 
Simon