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Woman on Wine

By Amy Reiley

California’s Zinfandel is one of the world’s most sinful grapes. It can be pretty and sleek, rough and masculine, or dark and powerful. Zin can be anything you want it to be. This month, take a walk on the wild side with the many faces of Zinfandel.

D Cubed Cellars
2002 Howell Mountain Zinfandel
A bright, flirty wine with current and cranberry flavors, but don’t be fooled by Howell Mountain Zin’s approachability. It is a wine with good structure, serious tannins clearly made with thought and intensity. $$$

Meeker Vineyard
2003 FroZin
This is a crazy, complex wine with absolutely no match. Made in the style of an Ice Wine, its frozen grapes release a sweet, honeyed nectar far more mellow than traditional Zin—more like a meaty version of late-harvest Riesling. $$

Peachy Canyon
2002 Westside Zinfandel
From one of California’s top-rated makers of Zin, this wine begins with an earthy, mushroomy component to its aromas and finishes with a little vanilla on the palate. But in between, it’s a pure pinup with voluptuous cherry and berry fruit. $$

Pedroncelli Winery
2001 Pedroni-Bushnell Zinfandel
This is a Zin made for a meal. A step back from that fruit-rich, high alcohol we’ve come to accept as the Zinfandel norm, this Zin offers bright cherry fruit, balance and a strong, but not overbearing tannic structure. $$

Renwood Winery
2002 Grandpere Zinfandel
A wine with dark berry fruit flavor and fine grain tannin, Grandpere’s finish leaves a positive legacy of caramel and cocoa flavors. $$$

Rosenblum Cellars
Annette’s Reserve Zinfandel
A big wine, but this Zin is decidedly unburly. Its aromas are pretty, with a hint of rose. In flavor blackberry dominates, with both the flavors of the berry and the bramble. $$$

Tres Sabores
2001 Rudy Zuidema Cuvee
This is a dark, dense, wild wine ripe with blackberry juice flavors and an earthy bramble. It finishes with a hint of black pepper that faintly tickles the tongue. $$$

Woodenhead
2002 Braccialini Vineyard Zinfandel
A “meaty” wine with red currant aromas and a faint whiff of wild game, its flavors are juicy cherry, almost sweet but its good, acidic structure gives it bite. $$$

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