2006 Ridge Zinfandel East Bench

A very small production of East Bench gets made every year and rarely makes it to Connecticut. Our distributor only had a case, and offered it to me as we buy a lot of Ridge for BONDA. I liked the wine, but it was a little hot (too much alcohol) and surprisingly did not have a lot of fruit.

Jamie had stored it in his cellar, so it was a perfect temp, but wasn't like any Ridge I had from the 00's. 100% Zinfandel, it was mellow. As it opened up and warmed up a bit, the big raisiny Zin flavors came out, taming the alcohol. I think it needs more time in the bottle as the '03s and '04s from Ridge are drinking awesome now.

04.12.08/ SWT 1996 Ridge Lytton Springs

In follow-up to the last post, about our wine tasting at Sam's house in April, the next wine was this '96 Lytton Springs. I love Ridge wines, and it was a pleasure to try a Lytton with some age. We tend to drink a fair amount of it from the 2003, 2004, 2005 vintages.

Jamie declared: "This baby's all grown up!" Featuring a nose of fig with hints of pink peppercorn achored with a load of spice.

Sam was impressed by the wine's ageability - letting it breathe for about an hour enhanced the flavor, yet it could have been decanted.

It tasted like an aged Ridge, but still has the fresh zintastic roasted plum, dried raisin, touch of cedar flavors. It is bordering on closing out, so it was good that we opened it that night!

2005 Ridge Geyserville

This is the 40th vintage of Geyserville and we found it to be very zinny. I cannot remember the percentages, but it was a lot more Zin than previous years, with some Carignane (17%) and Petite Syrah or Alicante (6%) . Lots of raisin. Surprisingly this wine needs some time in the bottle to settle.

01.09.08 Trying Wine for the Restaurant

Luckily the FCWAC still had some tasting left in them after the Staglin, as Jamie and I have compiled about twelve bottles of wine to try for BONDA. Generally we sit down with dinner and have a bottle at a time - wines that we have ordered as sample bottles, or new vintages that we get a case blind - to write the wine descriptions on the wine list, and to just check them out.

The picture, which I am having trouble posting, shows all the wine we tried, not all of the bottles being finished. I will give a quick recap of the wines but no go into too much detail as they officially cannot rank in the 365 Wines schema.

2006 Merryhill Cabernet Sauvignon: this is a wine we got for by the glass on a recomendation from Mike and Rob Makin. It had lots of cotton candy on the nose with earthy notes, high red fruit and medium tannins. Jamie noticed a lot of butterscotch. It was really tough coming off the Staglin, and most of the group had their palates upturned.

2005 Ridge Pagani Ranch: this wine only comes around every once and awhile so I was happy to score a case. Lots of elderberry and dark chocolate with a little acetone. It has the most Zin of any Ridge wine, a fact that made Sam call the wine "Very Zinny". Could benefit from more time in the bottle. I think they release a handful of their wines too soon. I usually sit on them for a while before putting them on the list.

2005 Ridge Lytton Springs: this is one of those Ridges that needs to sit for awhile. We ordered a case for a customer's party, so we had to dig into a bottle to make sure it was good. A bit of acetone on the nose with a wheated cereal note and almost a honeyed finish. Nice raspberry and blackberry fruit.