Monday, January 02, 2006

Rancho Zabaco Dancing Bull Zinfandel 2003 Wine Review (billy)

We've reviewed this wine before on TWCB and it resides on our recommendations list. However, I've never had it so here is my take.

But before I do I have to give props again to the new wine store, Century Wine & Spirits (no, we don't get kickbacks for saying nice things about them). I wanted an inexpensive, unpretentious wine just for drinking this evening. So I went to our recommendations page (above) and looked for a few I've not tried. I phoned the wine store and got one of the employees I had met on my previous forray. He rememberd who I was and graciously offered to look up whether they had any of my selections in stock. They did and I went out to pick it up. I was met there with the same cheer and good-natured smiles I received before. Thanks D!

So, back to the wine. Dancing Bull Zinfandel takes grapes from all over California but the bulk of them come from Lodi. Lodi is in northern California and has been a producer of copious ammounts of wine, though few of ringing distinction. It is the wallmart of vineyard plantations. Still, the growing conditions are fine and in the hands of a skilled winemaker Lodi is slowly gaining recognition as an appellation unto itself.

Nose: This wine has quite a nose on it. Robust and jammy fruit forward with plum and raspberry.

Palate: The mouth structure is well balanced but not nearly as dense as the nose portends. This makes for a very drinkable "quaffing" wine rather than a sipping wine. To find such a nose in a quaffing wine is excellent. Melon flavors abound and intermingle with a grassy cherry that is not at all unpleasing.

Finish: short but nice with the melon pulling through the finish and smoothing out the berry acids. There is a "clean" mouth feel after the swallow that evidences the very soft tannins as they dissipate from the palate.

In all an excellent quaffing wine. I paid $8.99 for a bottle of this just this evening.

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