huevos con vino

“So, what types of wines do you like?”

“Well, we spent a lot of time in Spain and France, so we like big, spicy red wines for the most part.”

“Yeah, I definitely like the Rioja wines and a lot of those big, bold French wines too.”

“We don’t know much about US or Australian wines, I’m afraid.”

“Really?  Hmm…HOLY HELL!  We have to try this wine!”

“Ahhhh…okay.”

I’m the one who yelled “holy hell!” because I had just spotted the distinctive “PF” on the label of a bottle of wine.  I was at the Postino Winecafe in Phoenix last night with a few colleagues, and I was looking through the different bottles of wine stored in the racks near the front of the restaurant.  The Postino has a great system: You can either get a glass of wine from the main list, or you can look through the bottles and find one to drink at the table.  The wines by the glass are fairly inexpensive and while they looked good, I started getting very excited when I looked at the wines in the rack.

The first wine I saw was a 2005 Brewer-Clifton Pinot Noir, the “Ashley” release from the Santa Rita Hills.  I also saw a couple other interesting Pinot Noirs: Patz & Hall, a 2004 Pisoni Pinot Noir, and a couple of other wines that were pushing $100/bottle.  But then my colleague and I had the verbal exchange described, very briefly, at the start of this post.  So we started looking at other varietals until I stumbled across the wine I wanted to try.

Peter Franus.  The guy is a winemaking legend.  The 2003 Peter Franus Brandlin Vineyard Zinfandel is a wine that I have wanted to try for over a year now, but I had yet to see it on sale at any store.  The 2004 release (the current release) is already sold out through the winery.  Amazing.  And yet they had the 2003 at Postino; a quick Internet check tells me this wine is indeed available online starting at about $30-$35/bottle.  Not too bad.

I absolutely insisted that we try the 2003 Peter Franus Brandlin Vineyard Zinfandel.  It went over extremely well; we had all kinds of delicious food, including:

• Three types of cheese - a d’Affnois triple-cream Brie, Chimay Grande Reserve, and a delectable goat cheese.
• Four types of bruschetta
• A Margherita pizza with fresh basil
• A Tuscan-style salad with prosciutto, salami, and freshly-shaved Parmesan

I was excited to try this wine with food, but I also knew it would probably hold up well before the food arrived.  I was right, as it turned out…read on for my tasting notes.

• Aroma: Blackberry and clove up front, with some mild smokiness and baking spice (such as nutmeg) in the bouquet as well.  This wine is known for its bramble and baking spice aromas, and I can see why!
• Flavor: Big jammy blackberry with black pepper and other spices plus a nice, rich black cherry mid-palate fruitiness.  A wine that lingers a while on your tongue.  A dry finish before the food arrived, but once we started eating the triple-cream Brie on toast, this wine began to soar.
• General impression: Wow!  As delicious as I hoped it would be.  A knockout Zinfandel that goes really well with food, particularly margherita pizza.

I am officially a fan of Peter Franus’ Brandlin Zin now.  It’s a darn good wine and it reminds me why I need to keep drinking all types of wine rather than all Pinot Noir, all the time.

Postino is also a terrific restaurant and wine bar!  On Monday nights, their wines are less expensive; they remove the typical corkage fee so the Peter Franus went from $49/bottle to $40/bottle, which is about what you’d pay to buy a bottle and get it shipped to you.  Very, very nice.  The service was terrific and the food was outstanding.  I can’t wait to go back someday!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 13th, 2007 at 8:44 am and is filed under restaurants, wine review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.