![[vineyard]](http://www.dashecellars.com/assets/pics/Louvau-View-down-Rows.jpg)
Dashe 2007 Zinfandel “l’Enfant Terrible” McFadden Farms (Potter Valley) – 13.8%, native yeast, etc. Served blind. Guesses range from Beaujolais to Clos Roche Blanche’s famous Côt/Malbec blend, but it’s been served because one of the blind tasters has repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with the wine. Here, he likes it…until the reveal, at which point he turns on it. Since this is just about the only useful thing one can learn via non-contextual blind tasting, I consider the experiment a success (he says with a self-satisfied smirk). As for the wine? Tastes carbonic – and yes, I know winemakers insist such a thing can’t be tasted, but the carbonated pop and zing is what I mean – with soft earth, gentle red fruit, lima bean, asparagus, and a fair structure despite the wine’s lightness. There’s a fade to the wine that it didn’t have last year, and the tannin’s a little more prominent, so I’d guess that wherever the wine’s going, it’s headed there. I like it, though I’m not enraptured by it, but I think it’s time to leave it alone for a while. (3/09)
27 March 2009
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4 comments:
I still liked it, but I don't like Zinfandel to taste like that. It's no different than decrying Pinot Noir that tastes like Syrah.
Actually, I perceive an important difference. Dashe isn't "defending" this as a-legitimate-expression-of-pinot-how-dare-you-question-it like the pinot-as-syrah crowd. In fact, he custom made it to the specifications of one particular market who wanted exactly this sort of thing.
You may still legitimately respond that you don't like it (when you know what it is), or that it doesn't taste like zinfandel to you (though honestly, it does to me, as has since I first tasted it), but this is a wine that has been "crafted" (ironically by doing less, not more) to a specific style, and is openly admitted to be such. I don't find that to be the stated approach of the big pinot crowd (which I find unfortunate; they'd have had a lot fewer problems if they'd started with "this is just the style of wine that we want to make because we like it" rather than "this is what our terroir gives us," when the latter is demonstrably questionable at best).
Remember that some of the big ass Pinot crowd does actually say that they make what they like to drink (e.g. Brian Loring).
The backstory on the Dashe does help me understand it, and if I were served it in a cafe out of a carafe I could happily quaff it. I will just not buy it in place of things that it tastes like to me.
Yes, now, after many go-'rounds over the essentiality issue. But it didn't used to be the first-order argument, and for many it still isn't.
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