Pizza with friends

[Florida Jim]

A busy day eliminated time to cook dinner, so a couple of pizzas served us.

1995 Flora Springs, Trilogy:

pleaseant, ripe cabernet aromas with a bit of spice; no overt wood/

full bodied, fairly simply but definitely ripe flavors follow the nose, concentrated, good balance/

fairly long finish that ends a bit dry from the tannins.

Good, not great. Lots of sediment so be sure to stand it up and decant. The drying on the finish makes me think drinking sooner rather than later.

1998 Paloma, Merlot:

blackberry and cocoa on the nose, ripe and attractive/

full body, better integrated than the Trilogy and slightly more complex with some of the black fruit morphing into red fruit, spicey, concentrated and intense but polished, balanced/

long, very balanced finish.

Perhaps, a little tight but showing very nicely and its polish and integration make it preferable to the first wine.

1994 Ridge, Zinfandel Pagani Ranch:

a lovely nose of bramble, roses, blackberry preserves, brown sugar and some kind of light Asian spice note; nicely complex/

medium bodied, fully resolved on the palate with a core of ripe fruit flavors surrounded by diffuse layers of complexity, integrated and well balanced/

medium length finish.

An exotic critter that has certainly changed since release – I might not have guessed zin. had I tried it blind. The rose element in the nose was so alluring and the complexity of the wine on both the nose and palate were, too. A strong endorsement for aging such wines as indicated in the label-notes by the winemaker.

BTW, not a trace of the 14.7% alcohol the label notes. A little hard to believe after all this time but I searched and couldn’t find a shred of evidence.

Best, Jim

[Fat Guy]

1994 Ridge, Zinfandel Pagani Ranch:

a lovely nose of bramble, roses, blackberry preserves, brown sugar and some kind of light Asian spice note; nicely complex/

medium bodied, fully resolved on the palate with a core of ripe fruit flavors surrounded by diffuse layers of complexity, integrated and well balanced/

medium length finish.

An exotic critter that has certainly changed since release – I might not have guessed zin. had I tried it blind. The rose element in the nose was so alluring and the complexity of the wine on both the nose and palate were, too. A strong endorsement for aging such wines as indicated in the label-notes by the winemaker.

BTW, not a trace of the 14.7% alcohol the label notes. A little hard to believe after all this time but I searched and couldn’t find a shred of evidence.

Just had a bottle of this about 3 weeks ago from a mixed case of Ridge that I'd been storing for too long. I wonder if there's some bottle variation, or if storage conditions were very different, because my bottle was very "hot" alcohol-wise and had that characteristic Zinfandel fruit. I mean, to be totally inarticulate about it, it tasted just like I expect a really good 10-year-old Zin to taste.