Say no to wimpy wines

A selection of the zins

It was a coincidence that at the recent Three Wine Men event in London the Ravenswood Teldeschi Zinfandel was voted by DoILikeIt participants as the joint best wine of the show. Coincidental as I it had been my favourite Zin at a dinner hosted by Joel  Petersen known as Mr Zin and the man behind Ravenswood.

Now Joe is quite a storyteller so he kept a small group of us engaged throughout the whole dinner. Whether he was talking about the Oz Clarke and James May's visit as part of their BBC series or how he started up in a business producing the Vintner's Blend the biggest selling Zinfandel in the world, it was fascinating listening to him

Ravenswood Zinfandels ready for tasting

The evening started with a taste through the range from the Vintner's Blend '09 to the Teldeschi single vineyard from 1999. The 1999 was my favourite but the '06 which used to be available from Majestic at around £25 was pretty good also with lots of lovely red and plum fruit, great balance and structure with well integrated oak. By comparison the Vintner's Blend was fairly straightforward but what else do you expect for a "supermarket" wine selling at anything from £6 to £8.

He talked about the 3 Zin sins of "too much oak, too much sugar and too much alcohol". He was asked about the parentage of Zinfandel as its often thought it came from Primitivo brought over by Italian immigrants to the New World. He reckons that current research proves it is a closer family member to Plavac Mali from Croatia.

 A fascinating evening.