We are suckers for a good Lodi Zinfandel with a price tag that you can afford often. When a winemaker asked us to preview his new line of wines and said that he would include his $10.99 Lodi Zinfandel, we couldn’t say YES fast enough.
And we were not disappointed. Wildfire Zinfandel is everything you could want in a Lodi Zin, and we consider it to be better than many other non-Lodi Zins which cost as much as $28 per bottle.
This wine starts with a nose that just screams “WOOHOO !!! LODI ZINFANDEL !!!!!!” It is rich with blueberries, cranberries and chocolate. These flavors follow through to the juicy, but not jammy, palate. The fruit is ripe without being sweet, and the finish is all soft, spicy pepper that leaves just the right little zip in the back of your mouth. We had to taste this without benefit of food, but when the question was asked, we all looked at each other and said “Chicken Wings!” at the same time. Our thought was to take the bottle to the nearest Buffalo Wild Wings, but they wouldn’t let us bring it in the door — something about “…liquor laws…” Well, Buffalo Wild Wings gets 0 Stars, but Wildfire Zinfandel gets a provisional 5 Stars — Highest Recommendation and if the price holds when we see it on the shelf, this will be a permanent rating.
Stray Dog Zinfandel has got to be our favorite economy priced, daily drinking Zin. There is no pretense in this wine, you don’t have to think real hard about it when you drink it and it just goes so well with any kind of food off the grill. We served this to friends at a small wine tasting that we hosted because we had soooooo many wines that we wanted to go through that week. Although our normal choice would have been red meat with this wine, we really liked it with the shrimp cocktail as the spice laden finish of the wine complimented the horseradish in the cocktail sauce beautifully. Next, we went to the chocolate fondue pot (oh yeah!) and the hot fudgie chocolate over strawberries was just wonderful with our glass of Stray Dog.
The wine shop owner said that this is an unfiltered wine and so we shouldn’t be upset if there are wine colored crystals (called “tartrate crystals”) on the bottom of the cork and maybe in the neck of the bottle. These are normal. OK. Apparently somehow filtering the wine removes some of the flavor and so even though most wineries filter their wines, it is apparently better if you don’t. Sounds sort of like the difference in flavor between “free range chicken” and “regular chicken” to us, but what do we know? When we opened the wine and found crystals, we didn’t panic, we just wiped them away and poured the wine. We found bright, luscious fruit bursting out into our nose. The palate mellowed out with just a little bit of an earthy-thing going on, and then the wine finished with just the right Zinfandel spice on the end. We drank it on the deck with Triscuts & Cheddar cheese while watching the sunset. When the sun was down, we looked at each other and said, “Oh my goodness! We just drank the whole bottle!” Thoroughly enjoyable and fairly priced, we give it 4 STARS — RECOMMENDED
We were drawn first to name and the quirky black label with the red dog on it. It’s cute, and from Paso Robles, how bad could it be? So we bought a bottle and tried it. For the price, this wine is just fine, and there is less than 2000 cases made. It’s got a fruity nose with cranberries & blueberries, a juicy palate with zippy Zinfandel spice in the back of our mouth, just the way it ought to be. We think it is priced fairly, makes for a nice weekday dinner with a friend wine, and give it 4 STARS — RECOMMENDED
Great Cognac Education
Small Wine Review Feature Wine
St. Helena Winery