huevos con vino

They say you should drink Zinfandel soon after release.  When I look at some of the most popular, highest-end restaurants in the Seattle area, the Zinfandels on their wine lists seem to support this notion: no Zins over 2-3 years old.  And yet the good people at Radio-Coteau claim their 2005 Von Weidlich Zinfandel will age through 2017.  After trying some myself, I am inclined to agree.

It’s no secret that I love the wines of Radio-Coteau.  I mean that literally: If you search Google for “radio coteau,” my blog comes up 4th in the search results.  Add in the hyphen and I’m still in the top 10.  I guess I write about these guys fairly often, or else Google likes my blog.  Either way, I do love Radio-Coteau wines.  It seems fitting that this blog gives them a lot of good publicity and gets ranked so highly in the Google search results since “Radio Coteau” means “word of mouth” by one definition.  I’ve never seen such a word of mouth operation, either: I occasionally see other high class Pinot Noir bottles in stores, but I never see any Radio-Coteau.  I ask sommeliers about the wine and get the same blank stare every time.  And yet Eric Sussman continues to sell out vintage after vintage of his Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Syrah, and Chardonnay.  Must be a lot of words coming out of a lot of mouths, eh?

I decided last night that I wanted to open a wine from my “cellar.”  My method for doing something like that is extremely techno-nerdy: I went to CellarTracker.com, searched my entire collection by location, and then sorted all the bottles in my cellar by their respective drinking “windows.”  That is to say, I tried to see which wine should be consumed as soon as possible.  The drinking window for 2005 Von Weidlich Zinfandel is 2007-2008, according to the community of people who use CellarTracker.  This timeframe is at odds with the 2017 date that Radio-Coteau claims, but I decided to open the Zinfandel anyway and see for myself whether it could age another 10 years.

Here are a few intriguing details about this wine:

• 15.6% alcohol - not too high for a California Zin (I’ve had much higher), but no lightweight
• 265 cases produced - that’s a small production run!
• $42/bottle - see previous point…not cheap, but not common either
• $40-$60/bottle on the aftermarket - clearly this wine has its followers.  A good sign.
• Grapes taken from vines planted in 1937 and 1946 - those are some old vines, although they aren’t the oldest in California

So, how does this wine smell and taste?  Pretty darn good.  Read on:

• Aroma: An extremely fruity and slightly floral bouquet at first, with fresh black cherry, raspberry, black plum, and blackberry mixed with an oak and vanilla backbone.  Some nutmeg and clove spice as well.  A complex, inviting bouquet for sure.
• Flavor: Bold and warming.  Spicy with black and cayenne pepper plus the promised bourbon spice as well.  A definite taste of Mexican (spiced) chocolate.  The acid is there but subtle, the tannins are most definitely there but well integrated after some time in the glass.  Very spicy indeed, but nice.  After a while, there is a black cherry flavor to go with the spice; the combination of the two is delicious.  It isn’t a cola flavor, though, as there is absolutely no citrus (cola is really just lemon, cherry, and vanilla).  My wife detects some coffee flavor as well, which is quite possible.
• General impression: Wow!  As The Who might say, “Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy.”  I can think of no better way to summarize this wine.

My only complaints about this wine are twofold: Why didn’t I buy more, and why didn’t I wait until it was dark and cold outside before I opened the one bottle I had?  This is great stuff, and while it might age well for another 10 years, there is no way I could wait that long.  And based on word of mouth, this wine might be hard to find in the near future.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 9:16 am and is filed under 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.