2007 Ravenswood Barricia Single Vineyard Zinfandel

Single-Vineyard Zin Brings The Ruckus

I’ve had quite the personal history with Ravenswood. Their Vintners Blend Merlot was one of the first wines I ever drank regularly. It was quite good for its price1 and it was easy to find.

I have since had some hit-or-miss times with Ravenswood. I’ve come to find that while the “approachability” of their Vintners Blend wines was perfect for me at 21 years old, I need something with a little more personality these days.

2007 Ravenswood Barricia Single Vineyard Zinfandel

Enter the Ravesnwood Single Vineyard Zinfandels. There are quite a few of them, and I have actually had several. This one, the Barricia, is a big dog zin. No joke. It spends 20 months in 100% French oak, clocks in at 14.5% ABV, and is actually 76% zinfandel and 24% petite sirah.

The wine is a dark purple in the core of the glass, lightening to a bit of a garnet red on the edges. On the nose is some blackberry and dark cherry, but also a touch more heat than I like to see.2

The 2007 Ravenswood Barricia is medium bodied, with a long finish. The alcohol comes through, but not too hot. The wine is robust and full-flavored, with a touch of dark fruit, but more obviously, a smoky, meaty element.

The flavor profile would go excellently with grilled meats, but the relatively heavy body, long finish, and higher alcohol make it hard to recommend as a summer barbecuing wine. Still, robust, tasty, and all up in your face: if this is what you look for in a zinfandel, then look no further.

Price Point: $35

Footnotes

  1. Or, at least, so I thought. My palate, as underwhelming as it may be now, was downright infantile back then. ↩
  2. Smell. ↩

2005 Lambert Bridge Limited Selection Cabernet Sauvignon

Dry Creek Cab Good Now, Should Be Great

I’ve raved about the wines of Lambert Bridge before, and I’m not about to stop.

After more-than-impressive offerings of viognier and petite sirah, how would Lambert Bridge’s flagship cabernet sauvignon stand up to scrutiny?

Well. Really, really well. Like, scary good.

2005 Lambert Bridge Limited Selection Cabernet Sauvignon

2005 Lambert Bridge Limited Selection Cabernet Sauvignon

The Limited Selection Cab is 100% Sonoma County cabernet sauvignon. It clocks in at a Californian alcohol level of between 14-14.5%, but for anyone used to Cali style wine, that isn’t all that high (this isn’t, after all, Paulliac).

There’s something incredibly Sonoma about Lambert Bridge and their wines. There’s a little farmer in these people, a little rancher. A whole lot of vigneron. Friendly, with unpretentious wine that still maintains some of its traditional roots. Not a hoity or toity anywhere to be found.

So, the wine: garnet red in the glass, the edges are a bit more ruby in color. Very, very pretty wine. On the nose are a mixture of very cab sauv aromas: rhubarb, blackberries, some bell pepper, a touch of earthy twigginess.

The wine is full bodied on the palate, with several of the same notes from the nose coming through brightly, including blackberry and a kind of tobacco leaf herbiness. Leather and earth, too. The tannins are a bit sharp, but the wine is incredibly drinkable now. Given 5-10 years for the tannin structure to round out and calm down a bit, and this wine should be even more fantastic.

But it’s incredibly good now.

Verdict: A-

2009 NPA Sauvignon Blanc

Amazing Funky Stank Juice

2009 NPA Sauvignon Blanc

Those words in the title, if you didn’t realize, are meant with love. Sometimes descriptors in wine reviews seem off-putting at first, but what I mean by funky stank juice is as high a complement as that could possibly be.

The NPA, or Natural Process Alliance, is a Santa Rosa-based winery that focuses on “thinking downstream.” They try to do as little to the wine as possible, and upset the natural process of the winemaking as little as possible. So this sauvignon blanc, which is (among other things) unfiltered, comes off as very, very different from what you’re used to.

But damn if these vine-hugging hippies haven’t figured something out. This juice is legit.

The very first thing you’ll notice, assuming you pour your NPA Sauv Blanc for yourself (or see someone do so), is the container. No glass, no box; the NPA houses all their wine in 750ml stainless steel Klean Kanteen bottles. Next, the wine looks very different from your usual sauv blanc: it’s cloudy, and a yellow-green in color.

When I first sniffed this wine, I had to back up off of it and set my cup down, if you know what I mean.1 The nose is a mélange of the most amazing ripe citrus and tropical fruits: melon, pineapple, nectarine, and passion fruit. It’s really quite something. You could bottle this scent and sell it at Tommy Bahama for, like, a grip of cash.

The NPA Sauv Blanc is full-bodied, which I don’t find often in this usually-lighter variety. On the palate you pick up notes of peach, grass, and nectarine. The wine’s alcohol content is low for California (12.8%), and it’s refreshing in a way not unlike Kern’s fruit nectars are.

NPA wine is extremely hard to get ahold of right now, but you can check out their website to see what your chances are of getting ahold of this funky stank juice.

I recommend you do.

Verdict: A-

(photo: Courtesy Flickr user linecook / CC BY-NC)

Footnotes

  1. Cf. ↩