Scherrer Zinfandel Old and Mature Vines 2004
JeffG was touring these cold and dreary climes recently and he kindly brought a couple bottles with him. I was told to age this Zin, but since there's practically nothing to drink here, I wanted to open it now. Jeff told me to decant for a long time. 12 hours is what was mentioned. I thought that must be an exaggeration so I tried a small sample just after it was opened.
Super-sweet and ripe, one-dimensional; weird since Scherrer, as it was told to me, was structured and tight!
Fast forward to dinner, 13h later. Oh yeah! The morning sniff was a stereotype of Zin, but now that I'm back from work and fried a bit of dead animal, this is really starting to smell nice! It is spicy and has some berry aromas as Zin is supposed to have, and has aromas quite like Chateauneuf du Pape from those few good producers I know of (think Texier); sweet, but at least it has good structure. Spicy finish. It is a pretty big wine at 14,5% and though hugely interesting I perhaps have to also admit that it isn't quite as moreish as I hoped it would have been.
But as far as Zins go, this is the best I've had. I even preferred this to Ridge's. (Though, admittedly, I haven't had Ridge with age on it.)