2005 Alexander Valley Vineyards Redemption Zinfandel Dry Creek Valley 14.8%
And now for something completely different. A robust mix of blackberry, funk, iodine, oak vanilla and caramel is conveyor belted by a steady stream of alcohol fumes towards the epithelia of the nasal cavities. In the bucal zone, alcohol overwhelms fruit, providing a measure of sweetness to what has obviously been vinified dry, its disinfectant sting compensating (somewhat) for the low acidity. Good body weight, of course.
Not our usual cup of tea but, despite the glibness of these comments, this gave us a fair amount of pleasure; it is competently made and helped place what we usually drink in better perspective. Not a gastronomic wine, but would have worked quite well at a party. Moral of the story: the fact that it just as easily have been a Catena Alta Malbec or an export-oriented Australian shiraz drove home how high alcohol/low acid vinification tends to efface both varietal and origin.