I don’t mean that the Ridge Vineyards Three Valleys 2008, Sonoma County, is the kind of wine that brings you to your knees, makes you want to kiss the earth and thank your lucky stars that you’re alive. Those wines are rare. What I do mean is that this is a reasonably priced, thoughtfully crafted, quietly confident wine that dictates no extremes and tolerates no exaggeration. Its balance and integration are lovely to behold, and it happens to be delicious. It’s not an Exceptional wine in my rating scheme, but in its own way, it’s perfect.

Last night, I made Jamie Oliver’s Pasta alla Norma, about which I have written before, and opened to drink with the dish this Ridge Three Valleys 2008. The wine is a blend of 74 percent zinfandel, 11 percent petite sirah, 5 percent carignane, 4 percent mataro and 3 percent each syrah and grenache. Mataro is a little-used synonym for the mourvèdre grape. Notice the oak regimen: American oak barrels, 33 percent new and 1-year-old; 20 percent 2-years-old; 47 percent 5- or 6-years old. No taint of toasty new oak or woodiness mars the integrity of the wine’s fruit and finely-meshed tannic structure. Bouquet and flavor profile meld seamlessly in a welter of dusty plums, black and red currants and a touch of pert mulberry bolstered by hints of potpourri, sandalwood and granite-flecked minerals. Vibrant acidity whets the palate, leaving your taste buds eager for another sip, while the smooth, supple texture fills the mouth with impressive but not imposing weight. To remind us that the majority of grapes in the blend are zinfandel, the finish brings in notes of briers, brambles and black pepper. While head winemaker at Ridge is still the venerable, if not saintly, Paul Draper, the artisans of this wine were Eric Baugher, winemaker at the company’s Monte Bello facility, and John Olney, winemaker at Ridge’s Lytton Springs winery. 14.2 percent alcohol. Drink now through 2013 or ’14. Excellent. Suggested retail price is $22; I paid $25 here in Memphis.

Reading over what I wrote in this post, it occurs to me that in its wholesome clarity of purpose, its authenticity and integrity, its complete level of sensual and intellectual satisfaction, its general unfussiness and lack of ego, the Ridge Three Valleys 2008 is precisely the sort of wine that should make us thank our lucky stars.

As faithful readers of this blog know — bless yer little pointy heads! — every feasible Saturday night it’s Pizza-and-Movie Night in the FK/LL household. This has been a steady occurrence for 15 years or so, and for most of that time I adhered to pretty much the same routine in making the pizza. Recently, though, I radically changed the way I make pizza, in terms of basic ingredients and technique.

The first inspiration was an article that ran in the food section of The New York Times on May 18 (and available online), called “The Slow Route to Homemade Pizza,” by Oliver Strand. Following the advice of a number of professional pizza-makers, the story advocates making the pizza dough and letting it rise at room temperature for 24 hours or at least overnight. Now I’ve always indulged in what I thought of as a slow rising of the dough at about eight hours, but overnight was new to me. I tried the technique soon after I read the article, making the dough on Friday night and leaving the bowl on the counter until the next morning. About 11 o’clock, I punched the dough down, kneaded it a few times, put it back in the bowl and set it out on the back porch. By the time I was ready to make the pizza at 6 p.m., the dough has been working for about 20 hours.

What happened next was remarkable. Usually, when you roll out the dough, you have to have do it a couple of times because the gluten is still elastic, so it has to rest for a couple of minutes and then be rolled again. With the new technique, I rolled the dough out and it immediately spread across the edges of the wooden paddle and onto the counter. Whoa! I actually had to trim the circumference because the pizza would have been too big for the stone. (Sorry I don’t have images of the process.) When we ate the finished pizza, the crust was thinner than I have ever achieved before, yet still chewy, not cracker-like, with a texture that had a little give and a rim that was slightly puffy. Fabulous, yes, but for me anyway, this technique is a little tricky, and over the past two months or so, I have had — it seems to me; LL is more generous –about a 25 percent failure rate, by which I mean that the crust was not up to a fine standard. I think I just have to keep trying to tune the method until I get it right.

The other change is that I began buying, at the Memphis Farmers Market, the hard white whole grain wheat flour from Funderfarm, a milling operation run by a young couple in Coldwater, Miss. The flour is not cheap — $8.50 for four pounds — but it’s ground the day before I purchase it, and it contributes wonderful texture and flavor to pizza. Now I can’t make a pizza with only the Funderfarm flour (the result is rather heavy), so I worked out a formula of about 40 percent Funderfarm hard white whole grain flour, about 50 percent King Arthur Bread Flour and about 10 percent rye flour from Whole Foods. All of these flours are organic.

We have also benefited from a bumper crop of local aubergines, including little globular eggplant; slim, tender baby eggplant; and pale lavender eggplant with faint white stripes. I slice these thin, marinate the slices in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, thyme and oregano, salt and pepper and then grill them briefly over hardwood charcoal. This is great on pizzas, especially in conjunction with pepper-cured bacon (as in the image above), and what’s interesting is that usually I can’t stand eggplant, it sort of
hurts my stomach. Ratatouille, yuck! I also like combining fresh tomatoes and marinated dried tomatoes on the same pizza, dribbling on a bit of the marinade as the final touch. (This image is of a small vegetarian pizza I made one Saturday when LL was traveling.) And recently I’ve been using four cheeses: mozzarella, feta, parmesan and pecorino.

Anyway, that’s what’s happening in My Pizzaworld. As far as wine is concerned, here are notes on the variety of wines we’ve had with pizza over the past few months. These were all samples for review.

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When Easton says “old vine,” they’re not kidding. The grapes for the Easton Old Vine Zinfandel 2006, Fiddletown, derive from the Rinaldi-Eschen Vineyard, some of whose vines date to the original planting of 1865, up there in Amador County’s Shenandoah Valley. Can there be an older vineyard still producing grapes in California? This is a beautifully balanced and integrated zinfandel, with loads of poise and character. The color is rich dark ruby with an opaque center and just a nod to cherry-garnet at the rim. Scents of macerated and meaty plums and red and black currants are permeated with smoke and cloves with a touch of leather and briers. In the mouth, the wine is rich and warm, displaying an intriguing combination of the savoriness of ripe, fleshy black fruit flavors with a sweet core of spicy oak and a touch of the grape’s brambly, black pepper nature. It’s quite dry, though, gaining a bit of dignified austerity and mineral presence on the finish. Nothing jammy, nothing overdone, and surprisingly elegant for an “old vine” zinfandel. Drink now through 2014 or ’15. Winemaker was Bill Easton, who also makes Rhone-style wines under the Terre Rouge label. Alcohol is 14.5. percent. Excellent. About $28 and definitely Worth a Search.
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The Grgich Hills Estate Merlot 2006, Napa Valley, asserts an individual character, unlike so many merlot-based wines that just taste “red” or like an imitation cabernet. From the winery’s Demeter-certified biodynamic vineyards, this intense and concentrated merlot delivers a bouquet of ripe black currants and black cherries etched with smoke and bitter chocolate and hints of lavender and Damson plum. A few minutes in the glass bring on a slightly roasted element, with flavors of black currants and blackberries permeated by cedar and dried thyme, all of these sensations cushioned by gritty, velvety tannins and fairly militant dusty, gravel-like minerality. The wine aged 18 months in a combination of French barriques and casks (that is, small and large barrels), some 30 percent of which were new. Such a regimen lends the wine shape, tone and seriousness without the frippery of toast or overt spiciness. Try from 2011 or ’12 through 2016 to ’18. Winemaker is Ivo Jeramaz, nephew of the winery’s co-founder and winemaker emeritus, Miljenko “Mike” Grgich. Alcohol is 14.5 percent. Excellent. About $42.
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The winery was founded in Australia’s Barossa Valley as Karlsburg Wines in 1973 by Czech winemaker Karl Cimicky; his son Charles changed the winery’s name to Charles Cimicky Wines when he took the reins. The blend in the Cimicky Trumps Grenache Shiraz 2007 is 55 percent of the first, 45 percent of the second. The wine spends 15 months in two-year-old French oak barrels that lend subtle spice and suppleness. This is a big, dark, rich and, yes, jammy red wine that bursts with aromas of ripe black currants, blackberries and plums swathed with licorice and lavender and crushed gravel. Despite the intense black fruit nectar-like ripeness, the wine is completely dry, even austere toward the finish, but it also just rolls across the taste-buds like liquid velvet couched in furry, chewy tannins. A little swirling unfurls notes of clean earth, new leather and smoke. This was terrific with the night’s pizza, but Lord have mercy, would it ever be great with a medium-rare, pepper-crusted rib-eye steak. Alcohol content is 14 percent. Drink through 2012 or ’13. Very Good+. About $15 to $18.
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La Mozza is jointed owned by Lidia Bastianich, her son Joe Bastianich and his partner is the restaurant business, Mario Batali. None of these celebrities — especially Batali — needs an introduction. (Mother and son also own a winery, launched in 1997, in Friuli Venezia Giulia, in the Colli Orientali Giulia D.O.C. region.) La Mozza was founded in 2000 and is located in Tuscany’s southwestern Maremma area. La Mozza Aragone 2006, Maremma Toscana I.G.T., could be called a combination of Italy and France; on the Italian side we have 40 percent sangiovese and 25 percent alicante grapes, and on the French side, specifically the southern Rhone Valley, we have 25 percent syrah and 10 percent carignane. The wine aged 22 months in 500-liter French casks; the standard French barrel is 225 liters, so theoretically, because of the greater mass of wine in proportion to wood, the oak influence with a cask is less, or at least more subtle. Not that the point matters tremendously for this dark, robust and vigorous red wine. Scents of red and black currants (and a touch of mulberry) are permeated by elements of graphite and potpourri, moss, briers and brambles and a bass note of mushroomy earthiness. Yes, there are intriguing, seductive layers in the bouquet, and if the wine is a bit more brooding in the mouth, that’s nothing that a little bottle aging won’t ease. The wine is well-balanced, but the emphasis is on dense but smooth, almost sleek tannins and rich, smoky black fruit flavors that need a year or two to develop. Try from 2011 or ’12 through 2016 to ’18. Alcohol content is a comfortable 13 percent. Excellent. A few months ago, the price range for this wine was about $38 to $42; today it’s about $28 to $35.

Dark Star Imports, New York.
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Yangarra Estate Vineyard, located in Australia’s McLaren Vale appellation, is part of the Jackson Family Wines empire. While the Yangarra wines are promoted as “100% estate grown,” the federally required designation on the back label mysteriously does not say “Produced and Bottled by …” but “Vinted and Bottled by …”; the implication is that the Yangarra wines (at least the ones shipped to the U.S.) are not made at the estate. Whatever the case, the Yangarra Mourvèdre 2008, McLaren Vale, is a wonderful, I’ll say it again, a wonderful expression of the mourvèdre grape. While a traditional component of the blended red wines of the Rhone Valley, Provence and Languedoc in southern France, mourvèdre is seldom bottled on its own except for a few instances in California and Australia. At first, this is all black: Blackberry, black currant, black plum, black pepper, black olive. Then a touch of dried red current enters the picture, along with sweet cherry and sour cherry, red plum, new leather. Give the wine a few more minutes and it turns into a glassful of smoldering violets and lavender, with overtones of bitter chocolate, espresso and dried thyme. The mineral element expands into layers of dusty granite and graphite that permeate the bastions of polished, chewy tannins. The wine aged 18 months in French oak barrels, only 15 percent of which were new, so the wood influence is sustained yet mild and supple and slightly spicy. This could mature for a year or two, so drink from 2011 or ’12 through 2016 to ’18. Production was 500 six-bottle cases; winemaker was Peter Fraser. Alcohol content is the now standard 14.5 percent. Excellent. About $29.

Sovereign Wine Imports, Santa Rosa, Cal.
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Just as the Yangarra Estate Mourvedre 2008 mentioned above represents a Platonic embodiment of the mourvedre grape, the Nickel & Nickel Darien Vineyard Syrah 2007, Russian River Valley, performs a similar service for syrah. Syrah was planted in Darien in 2000 and 2001, so the vines have reached a point of development that should lend rich character to the wine and continue on a plateau of quality for 50 or 60 years. There’s a whole truckload of crushed thyme, marjoram and Oolong tea in this wine, as well as baskets of blackberries and blueberries imbued with hints of prunes, plums, lanolin and leather and an all-over sense of ripe fleshiness. The color is inky with a faint violet/purple rim; the granite and shale-like mineral element feels/seems inky too. So add the caprice of lavender, licorice, bitter chocolate and potpourri crushed by mortar and pestle and scattered on a smoldering field of wild flowers and herbs. Yes, I’m saying that this is a syrah that reaches a level of delirious detail, depth and dimension, and the deeper it goes, the darker and denser it gets, until you reach the Circle of Austerity and the Chamber of Tannins and the Rotunda of Oak. (The wine aged 14 months in French barrels, 42 percent new.) Despite those fathoms, the wine is surprisingly smooth and drinkable, huge in scope yet polished and inviting. Production was 974 cases. Alcohol content is 14.9 percent. Drink from 2011 or ’12 through 2018 to ’20 (well-stored). Winemaker was Darice Spinelli. Exceptional. About $48.
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Desiring something probably less complicated and certainly cheaper on a subsequent Pizza-and-Movie Night, I opened the Estancia Zinfandel 2007, Keyes Canyon Ranches, Paso Robles. Estancia was founded in 1986 on the old Paul Masson vineyards in Soledad, in Monterey County. The winery is now owned by Constellation. Keyes Canyon is in Paso Robles, down south in San Luis Obispo. The wine is touted on its label as “Handcrafted” and “Artisan-Grown,” whatever those nebulous terms mean. As is the case with many of the products from wineries purchased by Constellation, this wine says on the label “Vinted and Bottled … “; check your bottles of Mt. Veeder and Franciscan, also owned by Constellation. Actually what the complete line on this label says is “Vinted and Bottled by Estancia Estates, Sonoma Co.” So the question is: Where the hell was the wine made?

Anyway, I didn’t like it. I tried manfully for 15 or 20 minutes to coax something out of the glass that might resemble anything to do with the zinfandel grape, but all I got was a generic sense of smoky, toasty red wine that could have been cabernet or merlot. Alcohol content is 13.5 percent. Winemaker was Scott Kelley. Avoid. About $15.

Finally, LL said, “Oh, just open something else. Something better.” So I went looking and found the next wine.
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Yes, as you know, I’m the kind of guy who will open a Jordan Cabernet to go with pizza, but, damnit, the movie was going and we were chowing down and I had to grab something. And of course I’m not implying that a wine that costs $52 is necessarily better than a wine that costs $15; the case is simply that every wine should perform up to or better than its price range, and the Estancia certainly didn’t do that.

Anyway, the Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Alexander Valley, offers lovely balance, integration and harmony. The blend is 75 percent cabernet sauvigon, 19.5 percent merlot, 4.5 percent petit verdot and 1 percent malbec. Aging was 12 months in French (67%) and American (33%) oak barrels, of which 33 percent were new. The bouquet is first a tangle of briers and brambles, cedar, thyme and black olive with a background of iron and dusty walnut shell; a few minutes bring in the notes of black currants, black cherries and cassis. The wine is intense and concentrated, dense and chewy, with finely-milled tannins and polished oak enfolding flavors of spicy black currants and plums and a streak of vibrant acidity contributing a sense of purpose. A model of the marriage of power and elegance and a delight to drink. Try now through 2015 or ’16. The alcohol content is 13.5 percent. Winemaker was Rob Davis. Excellent. About $52.

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July 4 is our country’s Independence Day. How about on July 5, we declare independence from oak.

Yesterday, as befits a patriotic mood, I made a tomato salsa and then fired up the old Weber and grilled some split-open bratwurst and wedges of baguette; LL made potato salad. Voila! A very nice Fourth of July supper, which we ate on the back porch with the increasing sounds of firecrackers and the distant dull boom of pyrotechnics burgeoning round about; and the dogs exhibiting nervous jitters by twitching ears and soulful restlessness.

In sly-boots mode, I opened a bottle of The Federalist Zinfandel 2007, Dry Creek Valley, which bears, as you can see, the familiar visage of Alexander Hamilton from the U.S. $10-bill, based on the portrait executed by John Trumbull in 1805, except that on this label the figure faces to the right instead of to the left, as it does on the good old sawbuck.

Someone writes on the back label: “As leader of he Federalist party in the late 1700s, Alexander Hamilton was also a founding father and ally of the Declaration of Independence,” which is rather like saying that Benjamin Franklin was an ally of electricity, but what one must vehemently take issue with is this statement: “Around the same time, the roots of Zinfandel were beginning to grow and expand out of Europe and into the U.S.” Similarly, the wine’s website says: “The History of Zinfandel dates back to the 1700s, when farmers in the northeastern United States attempted to cultivate this as yet unknown varietal.”

Bad history, class, produces bad karma, just as lazy logic proceeds to ignorance.

In the excellent and highly readable Zinfandel: A History of a Grape and Its Wine (University of California Press, 2003), Charles L. Sullivan documented with meticulous research the zinfandel grape’s entrance into the New World in a batch of cuttings sent in the late 1820s or early 1830s from Vienna to George Gibbs of Long island, an amateur and fairly obsessive horticulturist, and from his care to Boston. These grapes, under the name “zinfindal,” became popular in Boston in the 1830s and ’40s for hot-house growing as table grapes. They were not intended as wine grapes because two centuries of experience had taught the colonists and recent Americans that the climate of New England was not amenable for European (vinifera) grapes in a vineyard setting. All of this took place some 20 or 30 years after Hamilton died on July 12, 1804, from wounds inflicted by Aaron Burr in their famous duel, not in “the 1700s.”

Another misleading statement on the back label is this: “Our Dry Creek estate-grown Federalist Zinfandel is hand crafted to bring out the true individuality of the Zinfandel grape.” If only that were true, or, at least, if only it had worked out that way, because in fashioning this wine, its makers succeeded primarily in bringing out the toasty, spicy, deeply vanilla-tinged aspects of oak barrels. I kept looking for, hoping for, some element, some feature that would relate the Federalist Zinfandel 2007 to the character of its grape, to zinfandel’s innate briery currant and brambly plum scents and flavors, to its peppery flair, but no, the wine continued to express its oak-infused personality, making it just like scores, if not hundreds, of other indistinguishable red wines from California, enjoyable perhaps, if you don’t mind that spicy vanilla, but inauthentic. 14.2 percent alcohol. 2,570 cases. Very Good. About $25.

A sample for review.

It’s ironic that the logo for August Briggs Winery features a delicate dandelion puff-ball with a few of its gossamer filaments a-drift on a gentle zephyr, because these six red wines are anything but gossamer-like. They are, instead, in a few words, solid, substantial, robust. The winery is on the Silverado Trail in Calistoga, in the north part of Napa Valley, but August Briggs draws on vineyards not only in Napa but in Sonoma and Lake counties, making small quantities of 16 wines. Under review here are two cabernet sauvignons, two pinot noirs, a petite sirah and an old vine zinfandel.

Samples for review.
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The August Briggs Pinot Noir 2008 derives from three vineyards in Russian River Valley. The color is medium ruby with a radiant darker shade within. Aromas of black cherry, plums, cloves and cola unfold to hints of moss, autumn leaves and smoke. The oak regimen was eight months in 30 percent new French barrels, 70 percent two- and three-year-old barrels. There’s nice balance here initially between delicacy and something more dynamic, but the wine is also quite dry, and it reveals more spice and wood, in the form of brown sugar and allspice, that turns a little astringent on the finish. More time in the glass intensifies the cherry fruit. Production was 503 cases. Alcohol content is 14.2 percent. Very Good+. About $38.
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More detail and dimension surface in the August Briggs “Dijon Clones” Pinot Noir 2008, Napa Valley. This is slightly darker than the Russian River Valley pinot noir, and its bouquet is more pure, intense and entrancing. Subtly expansive black cherry, cranberry and mulberry aromas are gently infused with sweet baking spices and a touch of the exotic, a hint of smoke and sandalwood. The oak treatment is the same for this wine as for its Russian River Valley stablemate, but you feel its slightly woody presence a bit more on the finish, but before that moment, your palate is engulfed in a lush swathing of satiny succulence and earthy, rooty black and red fruit flavors. Still, 20 or 30 minutes bring in the same austerity that defines the August Briggs’ Russian River Valley pinot noir, so what we see here is a stylistic choice. Perhaps a year or two of aging will soften the wine. Production was 805 cases. Alcohol is 14.5 percent. Very Good+. About $40.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Let’s do these two 100 percent cabernet sauvignon wines, one from Napa Valley, one from Sonoma Valley, together.

The August Briggs Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Napa Valley, is all about structure. You smell it in the aromas of dust, briers and brambles, granite and lead pencil, cedar and walnut shell; you taste it in a mouthful of dusty minerals, dusty tannins and dusty oak from 20 months in half-and-half French and American barrels. Yet you also feel a richness, a smoothness and sense of dimension that speak of this wine’s potential for development over the next six to eight years; try from 2012 or ’13 through 2016 or ’18. Two vineyards were involved, the Stagecoach Vineyard in Atlas Peak and the Corbett Vineyard on Spring Mountain. 498 cases. 14.5 percent alcohol. Very Good+ now with the possibility of Excellent. About $52.

Let’s remember that the Napa Valley designation on the previous wine implies a large growing region with smaller appellations, like Atlas Peak and Spring Mountain, within it. Sonoma Valley, on the other hand, is a vineyard appellation (or American Viticultural Area) within the larger Sonoma County region. In the case of the August Briggs Monte Rosso Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Sonoma Valley, it’s also vineyard-specific, and a venerable vineyard it is, first planted in 1880, purchased in 1938 by Louis M. Martini and replanted, and owned since 2002 by Gallo.

The color of the August Briggs Monte Rosso Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 is dark ruby/purple; the bouquet is rich and warm, fleshy, floral and spicy, and dense, if aromas can be dense, with macerated black and red currants, plums and cherries; a few minutes in the glass bring in elements of iodine, sea-salt, cedar and graphite. As you can tell, the wine, in its bouquet, is a testimony to defining (indeed, provocative) detail. In the mouth, the wine takes a harder edge, with sumptuous, chewy tannins and lavish oak — 20 months French and American, 50/50 — leavened by a feast of granite-like minerality and foresty qualities. Fine now with a piping hot rib-eye steak, but otherwise try from 2012 or ’13 through 2017 to ’20. Production was 598 cases. 14.9 percent alcohol. Excellent. About $55.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ I’ll admit that the one of these six wines that I liked unabashedly was the exuberant August Briggs Old Vines Zinfandel 2008, Napa Valley, a clean, bright, pure and authoritative zinfandel whose grapes derived from two vineyards, one planted in 1908, the other in the 1940s and ’50s. Black cherry, black currant and blackberry scents and flavors are infused with smoky lavender and licorice and interesting hints of caraway and wheatmeal, the flavors ensconced in rip-roaring, lip-smacking tannins that are gritty and chewy yet plush, too, almost velvety. Tons of fruit here and tons of structure in great balance. You can’t get away from the fact that the alcohol level is 15.2 percent, but, hell, we get top-flight iconic cabernets now with that factor, so, you can live with it. Wrap this around game meats like venison and boar. 420 cases. Excellent. About $35.
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And, the one of these wines that I disliked absolutely was the August Briggs Petite Sirah 2007, Napa Valley, which in its very evident 15.5 percent alcohol, its massive oaken influence and its overwhelming tannins makes a detrimental fetish of muscle-bound bigness. 296 cases. Not for this boy. About $38.
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You’ll have to do a bit of searching for the Purple Hands Oregon Red Wine 2007, because the ’08 version is on the market. The ’07, however, is a wine of such marked individuality that I urge you to track it down.

This is a product associated with Ken Wright Cellars. If you cast your minds back, you’ll remember when Wright was the winemaker for Domaine Serene and Panther Creek before setting out on his own to make small lots of vineyard designated pinot noir (and a little chardonnay and pinot blanc).

Purple Hands 2007 is a blend of 85 percent merlot, 10 percent pinot noir and 5 percent cabernet franc. Now to many people, myself included, using pinot noir as a blending grape is anathema; pinot noir, the great Holy Grail Grape, stands on its own merits! Yet in Purple Hands ’07, pinot noir lends some fleshiness and spice to a pretty damned seductive wine. It’s warm and funky and meaty, wild and exotic, bursting with black currant, black plum and blueberry scents and flavors that contain hints of cedar and mulberry, lavender, rose petal and gravel. The wine ages 11 months in French oak, only 10 percent of which are new barrels, so wood remains in the background as subtle, supple support. Nothing subtle, though, about the wine’s briery, brambly elements, its touches of damp earth and moss-like tea. A few minutes in the glass bring up layers of fine-meshed, slightly grainy tannins. It’s gratifying to come across a wine that expresses a personality unlike all the other wines out there. Very Good+. About $18-$20.
Purple Hands ’08 should be different; it’s a blend of 50 percent merlot, 35 percent syrah and 15 percent pinot noir.

A sample for review.

We were having swordfish, a great fish to cook at home because it’s so easy, and LL made a smoked tomato sauce to go with it. With swordfish, the requirement is to cook it carefully and briefly, so it doesn’t dry out. You douse it with salt, pepper and lemon juice before searing or get a bit fancier and marinate it in lime juice, minced fresh ginger and garlic and a bit of soy sauce and white wine (or mirin). The point is to sear it on each side for a couple of minutes, so it’s a little crusty on the outside and just beyond rare at the center.

For the smoked tomato sauce, you start by lining a heavy pot with a double layer of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Make sure that the lid still fits on the pot tightly. Drop a handful of wood grilling chips, like mesquite or hickory or grapevines, on the bottom of the pot and set a grid of some kind over them, (to hold the tomatoes), put the lid on and turn the burner to high. Let those wood chips start smoking and then put quartered Roma tomatoes on the grid and replace the lid on the pot. When the tomatoes are nicely smoked, put them in a food processor with some olive oil and puree until smooth. Voila! Smoked tomato sauce. It’s pretty damned heady and flavorful, and it made a great accompaniment to the swordfish. On the plate here is also a medley of braised broccoli, turnips and roasted red peppers.

A couple of nights later, we used the smoked tomato sauce on meat loaf, which pepped up the flavor, and that weekend, for the Pizza-and-Movie-Night pizza, I used what was left of the smoked tomato sauce as the base for the pizza ingredients, which included slices of fresh tomatoes and a julienne of dried tomatoes, as well as marinated mushrooms, black olives and chopped salami. Yep, it was one of the good ones.

With all of these meals, we drank wines from V. Sattui Winery, a Napa Valley institution that sells its products only at the tasting room south of St. Helena or by mail order through the winery’s website. The company was founded in San Francisco in 1885 by the merchant Vittorio Sattui; 90 years later, Vittorio’s great-grandson Dario re-established the business at its present site, conceiving the unique idea of not selling the wines to wholesalers or restaurants. V. Sattui makes about 40,000 cases of wine annually, comprising 45 different wines. The company owns 230 acres, mainly in the Napa Valley, and also sources grapes from vineyards in Napa, Sonoma, Amador, Lodi and Mendocino counties. Winemaker is Brooks Painter. You can’t miss V. Sattui from Highway 29. It’s an extensive Italianate compound with winery, tasting facilities, picnic grounds and a store that sells all sorts of ready-to-eat foods as well as more than 200 cheeses.

With the swordfish, we tried the V. Sattui White Riesling 2008, Anderson Valley, Mendocino County. Made all in stainless steel, this exhilarating riesling offers a touch of sweetness on the entry, but that factor is easily balanced with crisp acidity and a prominent limestone element. Aromas of green apple and spiced pear are woven with hints of honeysuckle and roasted lemon, while in the mouth, a texture poised between the spareness of acid and minerality and the slight lushness of ripe peach and pear flavors is highly pleasing. The wine finishes with a touch of grapefruit austerity. 607 cases produced. Excellent. About $24.

With the meat loaf, we drank the V. Sattui Preston Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Napa Valley, which blends a dollop of Carneros merlot with the cabernet from a well-known Rutherford vineyard. This is a terrific old-fashioned Napa cabernet, sinewy and muscular but bursting with black currant and black cherry flavors and hints of cedar, bell pepper, tobacco and baking spices. It’s actually pretty sleek, with polished oak and smooth tannins providing framework and a little resistance — you feel that slight gravity of the tannins — but no interference to the fruit. Balance and integration are everything here, with each element eloquently making its case. 2,934 cases produced. Excellent. About $45.

Finally, well-matched with the pizza, was the V. Sattui Crow Ridge Zinfandel 2007, Russian River Valley, Sonoma County. The 94-year-old vines include, as is typical of Sonoma County zinfandel vineyards planted a century or more ago, a field blend of other varieties, including carignane, petite sirah and alicante bouschet, each represented here by a smidgeon. Again, this is a gratifyingly old-fashioned zinfandel in which the blackberry, black currant and plum flavors are twined with notes of black pepper, briers and brambles. It’s profoundly earthy and layered with granite-like mineral elements, yet, as with the Preston Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, this Crow Ridge Zinfandel 2007 embodies an innate sense of balance among fruit and essential acidity, tannin and wood — 15 percent new American oak, 20 percent new French oak and the rest used barrels up to five years old. The alcohol level is 15 percent, but there’s nothing hot or overbearing or over-ripe about this wine. It’s a little shaggy, a little foresty, completely authentic and mainly delicious. 702 cases. Excellent. About $33.

Samples for review; further blandishments included small samples of three cheeses to pair with the wines.

Is it possible to make such a statement?

As many readers know, Saturday is Pizza-and-Movie Night in our house, and it has been for many years. If we suffer under the burden of a social or cultural obligation on Saturday, we can switch Pizza-and-Movie Night to Sunday, but it feels weird. Occasionally, LL and I joke about how many pizzas I have made, and the closest approximation we can calculate is somewhere between 500 and 600, which is pretty damned approximate. Trying to ascertain, from that number of pizzas, which is the best would seem fruitless folly.

Of course some pizzas are better than others. Once we situate ourselves to watch the movie and the wine is poured and the first bites of pizza taken, LL will usually say something like “Great pizza” or “Wonderful” or, occasionally, “Brilliant.” And sometimes a silence ensues, and I, suddenly worried, will sort of clear my throat and hem and haw a bit, and she will say, “Not one of your best efforts.” Well, come on, we can’t be perfect all the time.

In late Summer and early Fall this year, I went through a Golden Age of pizza-making, where it seemed as if I could do no wrong. Then I went into a bit of a slump. Usually the flaw with a pizza is not in the toppings, though sometimes there can be a Clash of Ingredients; no, the flaw — or the perfection — of a pizza is in the crust. Having created as many pizzas as I have, the making of the dough long ago became routine, yet there must be minute variations of which I am unaware that affect the outcome, an ounce more water one week, a smidgeon less olive oil another week, an extra minute spent kneading the dough while I’m distracted by other matters. Who knows?

Last Saturday, though, by whatever conjunction of physical, philosophical and spiritual elements aligned in utter harmony, the crust on the pizza was perfect. I mean, it was perfect. Thin but not too thin. Toothsome and almost flaky, but not “short,” as a pie crust would be. Around the edges, it was light and puffy, making little air pockets that crunched gracefully in the mouth. The toppings were a handful of shiitaki mushrooms, sliced thin; little red and green peppers, sliced thin; chopped yellow onion; diced salami, medium hot; one sliced Roma tomato; mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses; a scattering of thyme, rosemary and oregano. Scrumptious.

I opened a bottle of the Murphy-Goode “Liar’s Dice” Zinfandel 2007, Sonoma County, a wine that I have not tasted in five or six years. The winery was founded in 1985 by veteran vineyard developers and managers Tim Murphy and Dale Goode and their friend David Ready; in 2006, the estate was acquired by Kendall-Jackson. Murphy-Goode perpetually displayed a marked fondness for assertively ripe and fruity red wines; a predilection for sumptuous, voluptuous textures in red and white wines; and, in chardonnay and sauvignon blanc, an addiction to new oak so severe that a 12-step intervention — “Hi, I’m Bob, and I’m an oakaholic” — would have improved things greatly. I blew hot and cold about Murphy-Goode wines throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, generally cottoning to the reds better than to the over-manipulated, syrupy whites, so it was with some interest that I recently received a trio of reds (samples for review) from the winery, or, I should say, from Jackson Family Wines.

True to form, the Murphy-Goode “Liar’s Dice” Zinfandel 2007, Sonoma County, is rich and ripe, sleek and exotic. At 15.4 percent alcohol, it packs a heady hit as well as the sweetness that a high alcohol level often conveys. Black currant and blueberry flavors, with a hint of fleshy boysenberry, are threaded with briers and brambles, polished tannins and dusty granite, and sweet, spiced plums. The wine slides through your mouth like plush velvet woven with iron filings. This is a blend, with three percent each carignane and petite sirah grapes. Winemaker David Ready Jr. calls the “Liar’s Dice” ’07 “our most passionate wine.” It could use less emotion and more thoughtfulness, though, I’ll admit, its unabashed nature managed nicely with the hearty, earthy, slightly spicy pizza. Drink now through 2011 or ’12 with cumin-and-chili-rubbed pork roast, barbecue brisket and the like. Very Good+. About $21.

Curious about my reaction to previous vintages of the “Liar’s Dice” Zinfandel, I checked the archives of the newspaper for which I wrote a weekly print column for 20 years, and found a few references:

<>Exquisitely ripe and flavorful, the Murphy-Goode “Liar’s Dice” Zinfandel 2000, Alexander Valley, is a crowd-pleaser of sensual appeal that manages to be almost sophisticated. Very Good+. About $19.50.

<> Like mainlining blackberry jam and brandied plums – that’s about all you need to say about the extraordinarily vivid and vibrant Murphy-Goode Liar’s Dice Zinfandel 1999, Sonoma County. Fortunately, this wild thing has a full complement of minerals, oak and plush tannins to rein it in (sort of). Excellent. About $19.

<> … the Murphy-Goode “Liar’s Dice” Zinfandel 1998, Sonoma County, [is] a bit lighter than the previous vintage but delicious for its bright, ripe currant-cherry-plum flavors and touches of smoke, minerals and spice. Very good+. About $17.

In other words, the owner may be different, but the philosophy is the same.

Overlooking for the moment the issue, which seems important to me, that there are no rules about using the term “old vines” on wine labels in America, I’ll propose as a model of what an old vines zinfandel should be the Sausal Century Vines Zinfandel 2007, Alexander Valley. The dry-farmed vineyard from which Sausal draws the grapes for this wine was planted before 1877, according to available records. That makes these zinfandel vines at least 132 years old; by any definition, these are old vines indeed, and they make a wine of profound depth and dimension as well as balance and integration.

First, what the Sausal Century Vines Zinfandel 2007 is not. It’s not over-ripe or jammy; it’s not “hot” with alcohol; it delivers no cloying boysenberry scents or flavors; it’s not massively tannic. The alcohol level is 14.7 percent; yes, legally that’s give or take a point on either the up or down side. Still, the wine does not fall into the category of almost port-like zinfandels that soar over 16 percent alcohol. I mean last week I drank a lovely, delicate pinot noir from the Willamette Valley that carried its 14.5 percent alcohol like a zephyr, so 14.7 for a zinfandel is child’s-play.

The Sausal Century Vines Zinfandel 2007, Alexander Valley, offers a beguiling bouquet of clove-and-black pepper-infused black currants and blueberries that unfolds to reveal ground violets and lavender, crushed gravel and a hint of mocha. The wine is notably clean and fresh and pure, a graceful amalgam of power and elegance that never loses its sense of being rooted in the earth. Black fruit flavors are rich and spicy but subdued by vibrant acidity and supple tannins; a year in French oak lends a touch of suavity to the wine’s texture and firmness to the structure. Altogether, a pleasure to drink, indeed an exemplar of presence and resonance, now through 2012 or ’13. Excellent. About $40.

We drank the Sausal Century Vines Zinfandel 2007 with chuck roast braised in wine and onions, with root vegetables, the second time I made this dish in a month.

Sausal Winery is owned by the Demostene family, whose ancestors came to Sonoma County’s Alexander Valley in 1901. The winery makes all red wines, chiefly several zinfandels, cabernet sauvignon and a Chianti-like sangiovese.

This wine was a sample for review.

Antoine Favero, winemaker for Mazzocco, specializes in risk-taking, by which I mean that he fashions wines, primarily zinfandels, that are very high in alcohol, usually towering at 16 percent and higher, while trying for some kind of sane balance and a revelation of single-vineyard characteristics. In the wines he produced though 2005, I was on board for this agenda; many of Mazzocco’s Dry Creek Valley vineyard-designated and reserve wines were thrilling in their combination of broad dimension and fine detail. The Mazzocco Maple Reserve Zinfandel 2005 was on my list of “50 Great Wines of 2008.”

I’m not quite as convinced by the renditions of Mazzocco’s zinfandels from 2006. Evidently nothing has changed in the winemaking process: the barrel regimen is still 18 months in French oak, the alcohol levels still hover from the mid 15 to upper 16 percent, and each zinfandel usually contains a dollop of petite sirah, that is, perhaps three or four percent. Despite that consistency, however, and despite some admirable qualities, I find that the Mazzocco zinfandels from 2006 do not embody, as the ’05s did, the principle of power balanced by elegance that has always been Favero’s rather paradoxical goal, by which I mean that creating a balanced, poised table wine at, say, 16.9% alcohol can be a Herculean task. The alternative is making a wine whose primary attributes reside solely in the “bigness” of its elements, that is, bigness for its own sake: big alcohol, big tannin, big (over-ripe) fruit. I’m afraid that a few of these wines fall into that camp.

>Mazzocco Warms Springs Ranch Zinfandel 2006. 16% alcohol. 450 cases. About $32.
Spice cake, dried currants and plums, cigar smoke, tobacco leaf; big, rich, jammy; port-like; wet dog, bacon fat, roasted and fleshy; very dry, austere finish. Serious and alluring. Excellent.

>Mazzocco Stone Zinfandel 2006. 15.9% alcohol. 600 cases. About $29.
Raspberries and blueberries covered with bittersweet chocolate; smolders with exotic spice and potpourri; pencil shavings and granite; inky, broad, strenuous tannins. 2010-’12. Excellent.

>Mazzocco Pony Zinfandel 2006. 16.1% alcohol. 500 cases. About $32.
Wheatmeal, fruitcake; pure, intense, concentrated; big, juicy, luscious; very dry, big, assertive, austere finish; pretty hot, fairly raisiny. Over the edge. Very Good, if it’s your style.

>Mazzocco West Dry Creek Zinfandel 2006. 16.3% alcohol. 150 cases. About $32.
Pure blackberry pie and blueberry tar, um, tart; very intense and concentrated; daunting tannins and minerality; very dry and austere, a real smoky afterburn of lead pencil, potpourri, bitter chocolate. 2010-’13. Excellent.

>Mazzocco Lytton Zinfandel 2006. 15.7% alcohol. 900 cases. About $29.
Very pure, very intense and minerally; rich and jammy, plangent acidity; granite, iodine, sea salt; luscious but amazingly clean; ripe and vibrant black fruit flavors. Like a beautiful wooden ship with a metallic keel. Through 2012 or ’13. Excellent.

>Mazzocco Maple Zinfandel 2006. 15.8% alcohol. 300 cases. About $40.
Bright, bold, brash blueberry and boysenberry, bitter chocolate and mocha; huge, dry, tannic, forbidding austerity on finish. Very Good.

>Mazzocco Reserve Warm Springs Ranch Zinfandel 2006. 16% alcohol. 200 cases. About $50.
Very ripe boysenberry, blueberry, blackberry; very spicy, rich and warm; balsamic complexity, ancho chili; a massive wine, combo of tannins and alcohol overwhelming; very dry, titanic finish. Very Good to Very Good+.

>Mazzocco Reserve Maple Zinfandel 2006. 15.8% alcohol. 170 cases. About $60.
Cigar smoke and tobacco, spice cake & plum pudding; intensely aromatic; penetrating tannins and minerals. 2011 to 2013 or ’14. Very Good+

>Mazzocco Reserve Smith Orchard Zinfandel 2006. 16.2% alcohol. 500 cases. About $50.
Rich, warm & spicy, but staggering immensity of tannin and minerals married to sweetish alcohol; finish is both cloying and Olympian. Difficult to judge. Perhaps for masochists. Very Good+ with a Big Question Mark.

>Mazzocco Reserve West Dry Creek Zinfandel 2006. 16.7% alcohol. 250 cases. About $50.
You have to push through the alcohol here, as if you were wading through it as toward a shore; there you find an intensity and density of black and blue fruit so wild and ripe, jammy and port-like that it’s almost bizarre; tannins are mossy, briery and bountiful, the alcohol feels flammable. Maybe Very Good to Very Good+ but not to my taste or palate.

>Mazzocco Reserve Pony Zinfandel 2006. 16.1% alcohol. 170 cases. About $50.
Smoke and ash; jammy, plummy steroidally-ripe boysenberry and black cherry; powerful fruit cake component; throbbing, brooding tannins. Forget any concerns about the mythical balance of power and elegance; this is all leather boots and tire-burned asphalt, and if that’s what you want in a table wine, well, freakin’ good for you.

>Matrix Zinfandel 2006. 16.1% alcohol. 225 cases. About $45.
Matrix is a sister winery to Mazzocco, where Favero also makes the wines.
Big, heady whiff of alcohol; very jammy, very dry. The alcohol makes it difficult to judge except on that point.

My favorite of the Mazzocco wines that I tried recently is the Mazzocco Petit Verdot 2005, Monterey County. Coming in at a relatively mild and certainly more rational 14.5% alcohol, this is earthy and minerally, fleshy and meaty; flavors of black currants, black cherries and plums, flecked with mocha, are permeated by briers and brambles, dusty, cedary tannins and polished granite. The texture is dense and chewy, resonant with lively acidity. Best from 2010 through 2014 or ’15. 150 cases. Excellent. About $35.

The Lodi Winegrape Commission was kind enough to send me 12 zinfandels selected by a “panel of experts” that chose these “outstanding” representatives from a field of 48; I applaud the panel for eliminating 75 percent of the candidates.

Still, I have to say that the palates of these experts must have been made of sterner stuff than mine; some of these zinfandels were so high in alcohol, so rife with jammy over-ripeness as to be untenable. It continues to boggle my little pointy head that bigness in zinfandel is equated with quality. People make these 15.9 and 16 percent alcohol wines, pack them with blackberry marmalade, thwack them with American oak and send them out into the world with macho names like Gargantua or Roadkill or Jackboot in Your Face and assume that we’ll all settle down like sweet woolly lambs and say, “Thank you very much, sir. Please, may I have some more.”

Having gotten that issue off my chest, I will say that I did enjoy several of these zinfandel wines from Lodi and bestowed Excellent ratings on four of them; two I found so unbalanced, unwieldy and overbearing that I rated them Avoid, which I don’t do often. Some real bargains are included here too. The sequence is from cheapest to most expensive.
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Here’s some good news. The Talus Collection Zinfandel 2007, Lodi, is a terrific wine at an incredibly reasonable cost. Zinfandel grapes make up 80 percent of the wine; the rest consists of petite sirah (11%), merlot (7%) and 2 percent “blending grapes.” This zinfandel is remarkably intense and concentrated for the price. Scents of blackberry, black currant and plum are wreathed with brambles and black pepper. It’s a satisfying mouthful of wine, with good heft and vibrant acidity to buoy dark, spicy — mocha and cloves — black fruit flavors wrapped around a potent core of lavender, potpourri and minerals. Tannins are robust and slightly shaggy. The alcohol content is a comfortable 13.4 percent. Very Good and a Great Bargain at about $7.
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Eola Hills Winery is a well-known producer of pinot noir in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. For the Eola Hills Zinfandel 2007, the company reaches down to Lodi for grapes picked, for a change, from young vines and aged 10 months in older American oak. The result is a zinfandel whose color is more a ruddy-magenta hue than the deeply extracted inky zinfandels we see so much. Interesting, too, is the bouquet, an amalgam of spiced apple, plums and blueberry with a slight mineral edge. As captivating as all this sounds, however, 15.1 percent alcohol gives this zinfandel a size that belies its initial impression. This is a mouth-filling wine, packed with big, dry, dusty tannins that dominate the ripe, moderately spicy black and red fruit flavors. I found this zinfandel to be oddly attractive and appealing, and at the price, one could hardly help experimenting. Production was 529 cases. Very Good. About $13.
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The Oak Ridge Winery OZV Zinfandel 2005, Lodi, made from 50- to 100-year-old vineyards, comes in a hair under 14 percent alcohol, which feels like a blessing in the wine. This is classic, a bountiful basket of black currants and plums with one or two ripe boysenberries and an overlay of blueberry tart. In the mouth, we get raspberry and damson plum marmalade infused with port stuffed into a fruit cake with all that confection implies of dried cherries and citron and dates, chopped walnuts and baking spice. Lordy, you’re thinking, this sounds over the top, and it would be except that the strict contours of wood, from French and American oak, a sinew of vibrant acidity and the weight of dense, chewy tannins keep it honest. The making is interesting; the French and American oak comprises 60 percent of the aging, while the rest of the wine was kept cold in stainless steel tanks to ensure bright, crisp fruitiness. Excellent, and a Great Bargain at about $15.
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The Van Ruiten Vineyards Old Vine Zinfandel 2007, Lodi, made from vines “over 50 years” old and clocking in at 15.5 percent alcohol, is an earthy, funky wine that features aromas of cinnamon and Moroccan spices, roasted meat and wet fur, coffee and mocha, and dried currants and blueberries. One feels the imbalance in the mouth; velvety, iron-inflected tannins provide a texture so dense that it’s almost viscous, while black fruit flavors are stridently spicy and too roasted. A hot finish provides further evidence that this incoherent wine carries individualism to extremes. This is a blend of 84 percent zinfandel, 8 percent petite sirah, 5 percent cabernet sauvignon and 3 percent syrah. Avoid. About $16.
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Now, here is what we want in a Lodi zinfandel and at a great price. !ZaZin Old Vine Zinfandel 2007 takes grapes from a 108-year-old vineyard, adds 15 percent petite sirah and ages the wine 15 months in French and American oak barrels (75 percent new). The result is a dark, intense and concentrated zinfandel packed with dusty tannins, earthy minerals and ripe blackberry, black currant and plum scents and flavors. Those flavors are smoked and roasted, a little meaty and fleshy, wrapped around a core of lavender, licorice and granite; there’s a touch of blueberry tart, but no boysenberry, no over-ripeness. The wine is sizable, robust, dense and chewy, permeated by briers and brambles, deep and long in extension and finish, which brings in more of a loamy, mineral edge. !ZaZin is made by Laurel Glen, well-known for Sonoma cabernets. Excellent, and a Great Bargain at about $17.
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The Bargetto Old Vine Zinfandel 2007, Lodi, bottled with this nice “retro” label, is first characterized by what it is not: Not too big, not over-ripe, not raisiny. So, what is it then? A well-balanced combination of black and red currants and dusty plums, married to a touch of fruit cake, a whiff of black pepper, and a dense, chewy texture. The evidence of aging 18 months in American oak is mainly revealed in a firm structure and a mildly spicy nature. Well-suited to hearty pizzas and pasta dishes and burgers. The wine is made of 100 percent zinfandel grapes picked from two adjacent 100-year-old vineyards. Very Good+. About $18.
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Aged 18 months in new American oak and measuring 15.5 percent alcohol, the Mettler “Epicenter” Old Vine Zinfandel 2006, Lodi, is partly an expressive and classic Lodi zinfandel and partly an over-wrought blockbuster. Florid, penetrating black currant and plum flavors with a hint of boysenberry deliver a spice and mineral afterburn; these flavors take on more size, turning more macerated and roasted in the glass and offering notes of mocha and licorice. All of these aspects would be fine — there’s a pass at elegance — except that a pretty damned hot finish deprives the wine of final balance and integration. This is a blend of 91 percent zinfandel, 7 percent petite sirah and 2 percent cabernet franc. Very Good. About $20.
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Here’s an amazement: An old-vine, dry-farmed, 16.1% alcohol-zinfandel that manages to be as fresh and clean and bright as some winsome young thing and yet retain proper gravitas for impressive power, purity and intensity. The Macchia “Oblivious” Old Vine Zinfandel 2007, Lodi, offers a purple/black hue; the nose displays remarkable minerals depths under generously proportioned, macerated and roasted black and blue fruit scents permeated by briers and brambles, forest and moss. This confluence of fruit, earth and minerals finds even more dimension in the mouth, adding rollicking spice, potpourri and an edge of smoke and charcoal. For all that, the wine is buoyant, lively and appealing. Production was 200 cases. Excellent. About $24.
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Thank god for acidity, for without its keen and lithe electricity the Harney Lane Old Vine Zinfandel 2006, Lodi, from the 105-year-old Lizzie James Vineyard, would be unmanageable. At 15.6 percent alcohol, this zinfandel is very spicy, very brambly, bursting with scents of ripe blackberries, black currants and polums with a hint of boysenberry. The wine is deep and dense, rich and succulent, and its black fruit flavors, infused with lavender, violets, minerals and plum dust, stop just before the point of being jammy. A few minutes in the glass bring in notes of new leather, and the aromas shift to black fruit compote, black cherry and black pepper, all heightened by a wild, untamed, even risky quality. In the finish, oaky, minerally austerity takes over. We drank this wine with flank steak tacos, exactly the kind of fare it needs to accompany. You wouldn’t mistake this wine for anything made anywhere else in the world, and of course that’s the way it should be. Production was 221 cases. Excellent. About $28.
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The m2 Soucie Vineyard Old Vine Zinfandel 2007, Lodi, is an ambitious wine that doesn’t quite hold together. This is quite rich. dark, dense and chewy, a velvet-and-iron-filings wine, emitting layers upon layers of dark, wild, spicy exotic blueberry, cranberry and plum fruit. The wine is very dry but luscious, almost viscous, and with its 15.3 percent alcohol level, it bears an overlay of ripe, alcoholic sweetness and heat on the finish, as well as touches of pomander, dark and licorice. It ages 17 months in new and used American oak barrels. The Soucie Vineyard was planted in 1916. Production of this wine was 430 cases. Very Good+. About $28.
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The m2 Artist Series Zinfandel 2007, Lodi, also taps in at 15.3 percent alcohol. The grapes derive from the Soucie Vineyard, mentioned above, and the Maley Vineyard, planted in the 1960s. The wine is a deep purple color; wild aromas of black currant and plum, mulberry and rhubarb burst from the glass in a welter of fruitcake and fresh-roasted coffee. The wine is dense and plush, packed with spicy black fruit flavors ensconced in supple, edgeless tannins. Still, there’s some heat on the finish that detracts from the wine’s purity and balance. The barrel regimen was 18 months in American oak, 60 percent new. 125 cases were produced. Very Good+. About $35.
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At 16.5 percent alcohol, the Michael & David “Gluttony” Old Vine Zinfandel 2006, Lodi — they also make a zin called “Lust”; I’m waiting for “Sloth” and “Anger” — smells, feels and tastes like port, which would be fine if you wanted port, but not if you’re drinking this with, say, a steak. I mean, this is a scorched earth wine in its intensely roasted, smoky earthy nature and overwrought in its sheen of alcoholic sweetness, though dauntlessly dry from mid-palate back. It’s difficult to believe that this blowsy, boozy monster made the cut to join this roster of “The Best of Lodi,’ as well as winning gold medals at several wine competitions. I guess poise and balance are distinctly out of fashion. 950 cases produced. Avoid. About — and this is ludicrous — $59.
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