ZAP GOODS EATS AND ZIN PAIRING 2009

Carolle and I for years have wanted to try ZAP, but have never made it, perhaps daunted by reports of the huge crowds. This year I noticed there was a smaller event on Thursday night, so we decided to give it a try.
The scale was perfect for an old guy like me. There were more wines poured than we could taste in an evening, and much more food than we could possibly eat. Although the hall was crowded, there was never a line to get wine: at most a brief wait for one person ahead of you. We found it very enjoyable, although extended conversations with the pourers were for most part out of the question.
We evaluated thirty-one different wines from twenty different wineries. (We also had a taste, without taking notes, of a few of our Sonoma County favorites.) All the wines we evaluated we had either never tasted before, or had not tasted for a very long time. We rejected only one wine as bad. Eight wines from seven wineries we liked well enough to recommend. They were:

Z-52 Wines
2005 Z-52 Zin Truchard Vineyard, Napa Valley
(Alcohol 14.4 %, retail $24)
Quite a nose, lots of aromas. A little brownish in color.
Very smooth, a little chocolate and a lot of fruit. A cherry aftertaste.
This was the third wine we drank. We kept using it as a benchmark all night, never finding one we liked better. At the end, we came back, and tried it again, just to make sure. Yep.
Full disclosure: I’m a big fan of Truchard Winery. Their Syrah has been my benchmark for California Syrah ever since, many years ago, I randomly picked it off the wine list at Pinot Blanc.

Sextant Wines
2007 Sextant Wheelhouse Paso Robles Zin and 2007 Sextant Holystone Paso Robles Zin
The Holystone was made from 45 year old dry farmed grapes.
We must have been distracted when we I was writing them up, because I have very sketchy notes. I recall Carolle and I both liked both wines. Both were very smooth. Carolle gave the Holystone a Wow!

Blaauwklippen Vineyards
From Stellenbosch, South Africa
2004 BVS Zinfandel (14.4% alcohol)
This is the first Zin from South Africa that I have had. The bottles of other South Africa varietals I have bought from Cost Plus had not been encouraging, but my South Africa experience is very limited. Having tasted this wine, I certainly wouldn’t mind taking an exploratory trip.
The wine: Good nose: A hint of prune, and a bit of not quite ripe fruit. Taste is very pleasant. Soft fruit in the middle. A hint of dust and smoke on the finish.

Magito
2005 Magito Panorama Zin
A blend of 75% Zin plus Petit Sirah and Syrah.
The winery is in Sebastopol. The pourer was a salesman.
A little cloudy. Very pleasant. Smooth in the middle. A little bite at the end.
Carolle: it’s good.

Ballantine
2006 Old Vine Napa Valley Zin
Dark in color. Nose pretty good, too, but not strong. Taste was a little sharp, not a lot of fruit. Ends with a pleasant cherry taste, neither sweet nor sour.

Easton Wines
2003 Easton Fiddletown Zin
This is an old friend. We used to go to Amador frequently, back in the 90’s, and always appreciated the value you received for some really good zins. The winery has improved with age. Fiddletown has some really old, really good, vineyards. The history of wine making in the area goes back to the gold rush.
Sharp spicy nose. Lovely flavor: fruit with a hint of chocolate. Very enjoyable.

Saddleback Cellars
Saddleback Old Vine Napa Valley Zin
(Retail $36)
Sorry, I forgot to write down the year.
Brick red color. Spicy nose with a hint of fruit.
Taste has a little fruit, followed by a hint of coffee, then fruit again. A very balanced wine. Carolle gives it a wow!

There are no wines from Sonoma or Lodi on this list. There are no wines from Sonoma because we are very familiar with almost all the Sonoma wineries pouring, so we didn’t evaluate their wines. As for Lodi, I have to admit that I have never been convinced that Lodi can really compete with Central Coast, Bay Area, or North Coast wines. It’s probably some snobbish foible caused by living from five minutes from Dry Creek.
That said, none of the Lodi wines we tasted were bad. All were drinkable. And we may not have tasted the best Lodi wines. Z-52 did not serve their Agnes Vineyard Old Vines Zin, which they refer to on their web-site as the “heart and soul” of their winery. We meant to try the Macchia, having heard good things, but didn’t.

Just a word about the food. Hands we down thought the best hors d'oeuvre of the evening was Agnolotti Forestal from Pazzo in Petaluma. This dish is the earth mother. If you are not grounded after eating it, you're not going to be grounded. The mushrooms! the truffles! oh my!
Another stand out was House made Lamb Gyros with Tzatziki from Zins Valley Restaurant. Lots of spice. It paired better with Z-52's Truchard, than its Sonoma Valley.
I also liked Hurley Restaurant’s Zinfandel Braised Boar with Truffled Polenta and Crispy Onions, La Garage Restaurant’s Braised Lamb with Daube sauce, Carneros Bistro’s Smoked Duck sandwich (it looked like a tostada to me,) and Bleaux Magnolia’s Sarasaparilla Braised Pork Belly with Manchego grits.