The second and final day’s judging at the Pacific Rim Show revealed how much of a convert to Zinfandel I have become inside a few short days. This is in part because I have been introduced to a finer and more balanced grade of this wine than I ever imagined people were interested in making and buying. Such is the influence of the high alcohol brigade that I’d given up all hope of finding much in the way of brightness and balance. Wines from people like Carol Shelton under her own labels of Monga Zin and Karma Zin (and the Gary Farrell wine I covered earlier) revealed a combination of intensity and sensitivity that I honestly never expected from the grape. These wines pack plenty of flavour, but deliver it with a delicious tightness, balance and firmness of structure. My stay finished with a Dunn Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon from 1989 into which I could have taken a tumbling leap, plus a massive young Zinfandel by Helen Turley that weighed in alarmingly close to the alcoholic strength of port. It was sumptuous, oaky and impressive, but the Dunn was the superior drink by the length of several LA blocks. It was a baby at 17 years of age, and I only hope I’ll see it close to its best in at least a decade from now. The other Dunn I enjoyed was with Chuck and Paige from the Jug Shop in San Francisco, the natural home of Australian wine on the West Coast. Chuck Hayward opened a 1984 Dunn Vineyards Cabernet (Napa Valley) that was silky, fine and enticingly perfumed. To my mind this wine overshadowed a more plump and sumptuous 1984 Duckhorn Merlot ‘Three Palms Vineyard’. From an individual vineyard in the Napa Valley, this deliciously mature and chocolatey red wine perhaps had more to say about its regional, rather than its varietal origins. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I walked through shops in LA that offered the Kirralaa Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 (from the well-known wine region of South Eastern Australia), costing a remarkable US$4.95 per bottle. Given that its intended price (at which its quality still almost over-delivered) was closer to four times that amount, and the ambitious joint venture between Rosemount and the Mondavis is clearly dying a watery death. Darned good wine, though! Saw it on Qantas Biz Class on the way home. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Chardonnay is not popular right now in California. It’s even tough for the wine show circuit there to get people to judge chardonnay classes. Who’d’a thought? Instead, people are taking to sauvignon blanc, its blend with semillon and to riesling like there’s no tomorrow. Australia has an opportunity here, especially with Western Australian blends of white varieties and with South Australian riesling. I showed a Penfolds Reserve Eden Valley Riesling 2005 at a lecture for wine trade students I held at Copia, an incredible wine educational facility in Napa, and the recipients just inhaled it. On the other hand, I bought a powerfully ripened Cakebread Chardonnay 2004 (mainstream Napa stuff of some price and reputation) for my final night in Los Angeles, but nobody (and I was the only trade person there) could even finish a glass for all the oak and the alcohol it flaunted. And they didn’t know what the label was. Clearly, Americans are looking for something else.
