A good California Zin is velvety, rich, smooth, complex, juicy, and just plain delicious. The trick is not every California Zinfandel is made equally well, so being able to find the right ones is key!
Don’t be confused by the 1980’s White Zinfandel that your grandma drank - you know the one with the light pink color, sweet taste, and ice cubes in the wine glass? Yeah, that one! A truly great California Zinfandel is a thing of beauty!
Zinfandel was once the most planted red wine grape in California recently as the late 1990’s (it is still #3!), but it has been unfairly supplanted by big, oaky, California Cabernets. Which we think is a travesty!
Zinfandel is also one of the oldest wine grape varietals grown in California, and some vines are more than 100 years old! So, when they say “old vine Zinfandel” they ain’t kidding!
In this episode, we put a couple of reasonably priced and easy to find California old vine Zinfandels head-to-head with a Turley wine that is also reasonably priced (which is a rarity) to see how they stack up.
Wines reviewed in this episode: 2019 Turley Juvenile Zinfandel, 2021 Gnarly Head Old Vine Zin, and 2019 7 Deadly Zins Old Vine Zinfandel.
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