Wine Tasting: Zinfandel

Rosenblum Eagle Point Zin

The wine: Eagle Point Vineyard Zinfandel 2003

The winery: Rosenblum Cellars

The store: [Turkey Creek Wines and Spirits](http://www.knoxvillewine.com/), Knoxville, TN

The price: $26.99

The color: opaque black cherry, deep garnet rim

The nose: black fruit, earth, cherries, cola, hints of smoke

The taste: *Very* tight, tannins would benefit from extended aeration (say 1 hour or more); plums, cassis, cloves; hints of leather and cherries

The finish: acidic, but not unpleasantly so; slight sour pucker, not unlike that from cheese

The verdict: It’s another excellent, site-driven zin from the best winery ever in an industrial park. Kidding aside, Rosenblum consistently makes transcendent zinfandels that echo their soil and soul. And for what you get, you can’t beat the price. Someday, when I have someplace to put it, I would love to cellar one of these powerful zins and come to my own conclusions about it. [Ridge's website](http://www.ridgewine.com/wines/wines.tml) kind of makes me pine for the idea.

The food: Belgioioso extra sharp provolone. They perhaps make the best cheeses you’re going to find in a supermarket in Greenville, SC. I bought some grapes, too, but they’re pretty thick-skinned, therefore tannic, and I don’t think it’s going to work out.

I won’t drink it all tonight, so we’ll see how it opens up tomorrow. I expect it to be fruitier and soften the tannins a little. The label says “this wine shows stunning bright blackberry fruit….” We’ll see.

And the Captain Obvious Award for Exceptional Arrogance goes to…

And the Captain Obvious Award for Exceptional Arrogance goes to: Wine Spectator’s James Suckling. Somehow, WS has seen fit to give this nimrod a oped alongside those two excellent writers and wine crusaders James Laube and Matt Kramer. This is a recent development which is completely inexplicable given his utter lack of a gift for language and the pretentious, pedantic way in which he conducts himself in the world of wine.

Let’s look back for a moment on that embarrassing treatise he published in the “Great Cork Debate,” opposite a piece by James Laube that was both an invigorating piece of writing and a cogent argument for alternative closures for all but the most age-worthy wines. James Laube had necessary facts and figures about screw caps, technical corks, synthetic corks, natural corks and other media, like foil-lined boxes. He had scientific information- and industry conjecture- about each and their effect on aging and longevity and laid out the simple truth that TCA and brett contamination equal one thing to wine lovers: a waste of money.

James Suckling said cork was traditional, and that having a screw cap undermined the ceremony of opening wine.

Give me a break. The Agent and I crack open four or five bottles a week, twice that if we entertain. Does he really think I get excited every time I have to wrestle the cork out of a bottle (even though I do have a tortoiseshell Laguiole corkscrew)?

Back to the Award. The latest from this *St-Emillon* obsessed ignoramus is his oped this issue (WS 31 Aug 06) called “I Have Joined the Cult.” It’s a sleepy little article about how he went to a tasting of heavy-hit cult cabs from the nineties, given by Swiss collector Silvio Denz. He goes on to list all of his own misguided conceptions about California wines, like how they’re all high-alcohol fruit-bombs, and how he would never have put them aside the wines of Bordeaux. My personal favorite line is “I never thought they would age very well.” I’m glad I pay $50 a year to be told that Napa cab ages well. I’m glad he has the attention of an international audience, because we all sat around drinking our Jordans and Caymuses on release, because we could never get 5 or 10 years out of them. Thank you, James Suckling, for saving us.

Does he really think he’s informing us by saying that Araujo and Screaming Eagle are pretty good after all? He ends the article telling us he’s “now a full-fledged member of the California cult.”

Guess what, Mr Suckling, we don’t need you. Here’s your sign.