|
Zinfandel! “Wow… This wine goes great with this meal” “These are all winners – I can’t choose a favorite wine!” and “What a wonderful time.” Now, isn’t that how you want your dinner parties to be?
After our last tasting of Cabernet Sauvignon, Brad suggested the next event should be Zinfandel. Actually, Zin with beef and chocolate, because “they go so well together.” We usually do these evenings as a planned meal, so I volunteered to braise some beef short ribs and bake a chocolate birthday cake. The beef recipe called for a bottle of Zinfandel, which was perfect for our evening. I bought the ribs at the local butcher shop. We’ve noticed lately that grocery store meat doesn’t have the same flavor that small butcher shops deliver, so this extra step was really worthwhile. I found the recipe by Googling ‘beef short ribs zinfandel’ and found several nearly identical recipes. The shop sold me 16 ribs, which I braised and then slow cooked in a reduction of zinfandel, beef broth and water for three hours. This required some big pots. Normally my wife is the house chef, but I had fun cooking all day. After getting the beef going and in the oven, I made the cake. This was a dark chocolate layer cake with milk chocolate frosting and heath bar crunch chunks in the layer and on the top. I added a bit of espresso to both the cake and the frosting. Now, the wines – this IS a wine column after all. We had four couples who brought four bottles. We used the usual format, blind tasting, same grape, $20 or less. One of our party said she only thought of Zinfandel as a cheap pink wine. We consulted the Wine Bible (Karen McNeil) to learn that Zinfandel is California’s most planted grape. Zinfandel is a big fruity wine, and it often has a high alcohol content. These wines were no exception, but they were very balanced, well made and easy to drink. With the meal they were perfect, not too tannic, yet able to stand against a hot chili and right next to the braised short ribs. In previous tastings we have sometimes had large discrepancies in how we rate the wines. Not this time. All four wines were scored within one point of each other. We commented on how close these were, how well they went with the food, and how nice they were to drink. I have enjoyed Zinfandel with Indian food and with Mexican food in the past, which it can support because it pairs so well with spicy foods. Zig Zag Zin, Mendocino, 14.5%, $17. Narrowly chosen number one, this wine was excellent, well balanced, and perfect with the meat. It was the sole bottle with a screw top. Coppola, California, 13.5%, $17.40 Coming in a close second was this wine from Coppola. One guest reported this was “the best wine I ever had” and she has been at quite a few wine meals with us. Some of the comments were “smooth,” “smoky,” “fruity,” and “balanced.” Cline, Sonoma, 14%, $10. This wine was by far the best value, and it easily held its own against the other more costly wines. Two of us rated this wine the best of all. I think this is our new house Zinfandel! Seven Deadly Zins, Lodi, California, 15%, $19. This wine was also exceptional. We tasted black cherry and vanilla. Zinfandel is genetically related to the Italian Primitivo Grape, and Primitivo is said to be a descendant of the Croatian Plavac grape. Several years ago I found myself guiding a kayak trip along the Dalmatian coast. One evening I held a wine tasting, with a California Zinfandel, a (fairly cheap) primitivo, and a bottle of the local Dingac, which is Plavac from one of the best regions. The California Zin was easily the best, followed by the Dingac. The Primitivo was a distant third. Now, I’m sure I could change things with a better Italian wine, but the spicy exuberance of Zinfandel was really special. We drank that wine sitting on our sailboat, at anchor in the harbor at Hvar, watching the sun set on the old castle on the hill, and thinking of good friends, good food, and good wine.
|
VinTravel Tours
|
 |
To be fair, we already had the deck stacked. We were four close couples, with a lot of history together. There were two birthdays on consecutive days, and we had the perfect meal and wine combination. The weather was cold, the wood stove was humming along, and we were celebrating February by drinking Zinfandel. 