Savored…Alone with a Zinfandel

Home alone on a Saturday night is not that bad actually.
Other than still trying to figure out the world of Mac with a good friend on Team Viewer, while channel 515 is showing LOTR – The Two Towers, I decided to open this bottle.

I had this bottle in my wine fridge for quite a while. Every time I have friends over and suggest that we open this, it was always a unanimous NAH. I can understand due to the fact that it is a Zinfandel, and Robert Craig is not known to make Zinfandel. They would probably prefer a 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon. So being home alone, I thought I can drink it and if it is bad, it will not offend anyone.

Well it was not bad. The colour of the wine is showing age, borderline rosy brick. But the nose was still quite fresh with notes of plum, black cherry and leather. On the palate, the aromas echoed with notes of earth, forest floor and savoury spices. Good length and rather balance, but the alcohol was quite pronounce. The Zinfandel was indeed living up to it’s reputation of being high on alcohol content. After 2 glasses, I felt the urge to speak the Elvish language. Well, I actually do not know how to, but the wine was inspiringly good at that moment.

I tasted it again the next day, and there were still some fruits, with stewed like structure. It was holding up pretty well. Hubz thought it was quite savoury on the finish, but not too bad.

On Day #3…I will not cook with it.

Savored…Bedrock Bar & Grill, Singapore (Part 2)

As promised, I will share with you the three red wines that I savored with a small group of friends during our early July 4th dinner last Saturday. As our tomahawk and porterhouse steaks, roasted pork loin were being served, we quickly asked the service staff to serve the first red. It was Signorello 2001 Padrone, Napa Valley. It was decanted for about an hour. This wine is a blend of 77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc. Not just for the sake of filtering out the sediments, decanting the wine helped the wine to be more revealing and approachable. Indeed this wine needed the interaction with oxygen. It was lush, balanced, and elegant in its texture and flavros. The 10 years of cellaring helped to even out the intensity of the flavor to be more stylishly settled. It was drinking beautifully and will age a few more years.

The next red wine that followed was Freemark Abbey 1997 Bosche Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley. This wine has been quietly resting for 15 years, and I believe it found its peak and drinkability all within 45 minutes. During the first 20mins to 25mins, it was gorgeous, moving around the palate like a grand Madame of the house. The notes of red fruits were still there laced with slight spiciness and mellow roundness. The finish was shorter than I expected, considering it being 1997, with notes of slightly dry herb and bitterness. That was when the wine seems to loose its structure. Nonetheless, I appreciated how it made an entrance and I would have loved to taste it when it was just released.

We thought we were done in terms of wine for the night. But a few of us stayed a little longer and felt that we can still open another bottle and make it home by 11pm. Usually when we meet, we will always have extra bottles to back up any bottles that may have faults. So a friend took out the bottle of Silver Oak 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, Alexandar Valley. This is the youngest wine for the night and it was a good one to round off the night. The wine had more fruits flavors than power. For a vintage of 2007, it is much softer than I expected. It may not be bad because it just means that one has good wine to drink earlier without having to wait too long.

Savored…Leonie Hill, Singapore

It is 2am. It has been a long day and going to be a long night because I think I will just get about 4 hours sleep before I pick C up from a 42km marathon that he is running right now as I write. It is a unique marathon event call the Sundowner which runners run from 1230am to about 7am, depending on one’s fitness level. I sit here typing and thinking about my long trip to San Francisco and found this photograph in my wine album. Tasted this in February this year and seriously, I was not too crazy about it. This just solidified my view that Opus One is rather over rated. They make good wines but not great wine for the price it commands. The bottle we had after this was pure excellence. I could not post the picture because it wass not a good one. It was Peter Michael 1997 Les Pavots and I am so looking forward to visiting them next week. To rub it in further, a recent conversation with Peter Michael Jr told me that the 1997 Les Pavots is his family house pour. Part of me is was impressed and another part of me thought he was joking. What do you think?