Oak Ridge Winery Ancient Vines Zinfandel 2008 – – A chill Zin! + Poppi’s Pizza = A Good Dinner

Last night, we ordered delivery from Poppi’s Pizza and opened up this Oak Ridge Zinfandel.  It’s been a crazy couple weeks since we picked up our puppy on 12/31.  We’ve been so busy with her that we haven’t had the chance to enjoy our wine or look for pizza in our new area.  This all changed on Saturday as we really enjoyed the thin crust pizza from Poppi’s and this Zin too. The pizza crust reminds me of Slice which was our favorite spot when we lived in center city.  At Poppi’s the dough isn’t quite as crisp, but the crust is.  Also, on the plain pizza, the sauce to cheese ratio is just right.  Their salads are a cut above the regular pizza place salads too with a spring mix of lettuce and pitted olives.  You’d think everyone would serve their olives in salads pitted, but my molars can tell you differently.

On a side note, if you’d like to see my puppy, I’ve created a blog for her too – her name is Macie and she’s a bernedoodle.

This wine is a chill zin – – I don’t mean that it’s a good wine when you are chilling out, which it is, but that it’s not an in-your-face bold, spicy wine.  Rather, it’s jammy, like mixed berry jelly and just a bit of oak to balance it out.  If you find some zins to be too powerful for you, I think you might like this.  Cheers.

The Raisinets of Zinfandel – Cline Live Oak Zin 2007 @ClineCellars

I picked up this Zin and thought it sounded interesting.  It’s a smaller case production from Cline (3500 or so) and I’ve had success with their Zins in the past.  This is a little pricier than their others – it was $22 in Pennsylvania (not a chairman’s selection), so likely a $18 somewhere else.  I think the Raisinets reference is perfect here as this smelled like a recently opened pack of raisins with the finish of chocolate.  It wasn’t a spicy or complex Zin and to be honest, I prefer the Cline Old Vine Zin to this any day.  This was closer to a dessert wine and if it had been a bit more concentrated, I think it would fit that bill nicely.

Robert Biale Valsecchi Zinfandel 2005

We had dinner with friends last night and one of them mentioned that he liked big, bold wine, but didn’t have much experience with Napa Zins (yet).  Since we were heading to a BYO, we snagged the 2005 Biale Valsecchi Zin and opened it up at dinner.  In my mind and taste buds last night, this is the best house of Zin in Napa and the Valsecchi which is sourced from Sonoma vines is a great representative.  It had the big jammy fruit with raisin undertones and a bold, but not too spicy/peppery backbone.  We’ll have to make a stop there on our next wine country visit to stock up on some more…

Robert Biale Stagecoach Vineyard Zinfandel 2005 “The Biale Block”

What happens when you have a Zin that tastes more like a cab?  You’re drinking this amazing Biale Stagecoach Zinfandel.  We were lucky enough to get this at the Biale vineyard when we visited Napa a few years back as there were only 600 cases produced.  As the wife says (and I agree with…of course), this has ripe cherry, some mineral and a bit of sage and isn’t really zin-like, except that it’s full of flavor and deliciousness.  If you’re in Napa, make an appointment, visit them and bring home some of this great stuff!

2005 Sanctuary Vineyards Zinfandel Mariah, Mendocino

We had the Sanctuary Zin at Union Trust last night with our dinner.  It had the representation of typical zin flavors (jammieness and pepper) but the proportions were off as it lacked the true pepper finish.  It wasn’t the big Zin we had hoped for, but enjoyable nonetheless.   I know that I indicated that I wouldn’t buy wine in a restaurant in philly because of the high markup, but we had a $100 gift certificate from opentable, so I didn’t feel as bad.  With that said, the restaurant charged $60 for a $25 bottle…