DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Long-time readers may recall our mention of a vertical Zin sampler offered by Dashe Cellars. On a recent day of some personal importance, we drank the oldest bottle of the trio, a 1996 Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel. According to the label, the Zin was blended with small (but unspecified) amounts of Carignane and Alicante Bouschet.

This wine is huge. Monstrous berries, with none of the high-alcohol heat that often accompanies Zinfandels. It was perhaps not as balanced as some of our other favorite Zins, but we enjoyed it immensely, and quickly, with 100g of Ritter Sport Halbbitter. Sensational!

And so I found myself in Healdsburg, wandering around the square, when I stepped into the Sebastiani tasting room for a few minutes to see if they might be pouring some Zinfandel. They were, as it turns out, but it wasn’t very good.

They were also pouring a new “tasting room selection,” apparently not available elsewhere. I’m not immune to marketing scams… but I’m also not immune to good deals on tasty red wine.

I’d never heard of Ruby Cabernet, but I have to say I enjoyed it more than I expected. It’s not a Cabernet blend, but a hybrid grape — a cross of Carignane and Cabernet Sauvignon, developed especially for warm inland California regions. I’ve just looked up some details on this and laughed out loud at a comment in the Super Gigantic WWW Winegrape Glossary: Ruby Cabernet is “currently used in jug-wines as ‘backbone’.” Ha!

There are really only two rules for buying wine at tasting rooms. You can follow one or the other. The first is this: buy only in bulk, to take advantage of case discounts. Or, for infrequent social visits, you can follow the second rule: buy only a bottle or two and try not to think what you paid for it.

It was with rule #2 in mind that we bought a few bottles of Ruby Cabernet. What they’re selling, and what we’re buying, is the right to stand around in a million-dollar room sipping free vino, pawing the fancy oils, vinegars, cookbooks, glassware, grape-themed tchotchkes, etc. and acting like well-to-do people on vacation.

Of course it helps that we were well-to-do people on vacation.

I received a newsletter and catalog from the proprietors of Dashe Cellars. Their 1997 Zinfandel was a memorable bottle of wine. It’s not offered as a part of their online catalog, but does appear in their newsletter, within a 3- or 6-bottle sampler — also including the ‘96 RRV Zin (recently selected, according to Michael Dashe, by Chez Panisse for an upcoming Zinfandel event) and the ‘98 Todd Brothers Ranch Zin. All in all this is a very tempting package. Zin drinkers beware — this is a limited-availability item. The only reason I’m telling you about it at all is that I’ve already ordered one for myself!

Stumbled across a cache of 1996 Mazzoco Zin today. We try not to keep Zins that long; in fact what’s most exciting about this is that it implies that there’s a cache of the 1997 just behind it.

1997 Zin… Mmmmm.

Topolos at Russian River Vineyards is just south of Forestville on highway 116. The thing you have to like about Topolos is the sheer number of Zinfandels they pour… about six at this visit.

Sadly, they were not pouring the ‘96 RRV California Zinfandel, which we’d enjoyed previously. Most of what we tasted this time were too sour for our liking (not that that prevented us from buying anything, natch).