Is California Zinfandel Underrated? (Discover California Zins, Cult wine, Turley, rich, juicy, and velvety red wines, a must-know wine)

Show Notes

Episode 83: Is Zinfandel Underrated?  00:00

Hello! And welcome to The Wine Pair Podcast. I’m Joe, your sommelier of reasonably priced wine, and this is my wife and my wine pairing partner in crime, Carmela. And we are The Wine Pair! 

Ok, a quick orientation for those of you who may be new to the podcast - in each episode we learn about, taste and give our honest review of three wines that are reasonably priced - meaning under $20 each -  and should be easy for you to find. And, our podcast is made for people like us - people who love wine, but want to learn more about wine, find new wines to explore, and just feel more confident when we talk about and order wines. So, if that sounds like you, you are in the right place - and, we invite you to taste these wines or a wine from your stash along with us while you listen as a fun way to participate in the podcast! And we are proud to say that we are officially recommended by the editors of Decanter Magazine who call us fun, irreverent, chatty, and entertaining. 

Carmela, this week we are going to talk about a wine that I think may be a little underrated. And, I will be honest. Before about 5 years ago or so, this wine was not a wine that was even on our radar - and the wine we are talking about is called Zinfandel. 

I also think we have been on a Zinfandel streak for the past week. We had Zin last week when we had our friends Mark and Heather over for dinner, and then at Sunday night dinner, your dad served Zin as well. So maybe it’s just on my mind. 

So, let’s tell our friends out there in listening land a little story of how we came to appreciate Zinfandel, and why I think it may be an underrated wine - particularly when in comparison to all of the hullabaloo around California Cabernet Sauvignon, which, as you know, I think is a little overrated. 

The story begins with our daughter Marianna who attended undergrad at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. First, let’s just say that the school and the area are just beautiful - near both the ocean and the agricultural heart of California. And, like many agricultural areas in California, there is a lot of grape growing and wine production in the area. The wine region closest to San Luis Obispo is Paso Robles, something we will talk about a bit more later in the episode. 

Relatively early on in our daughter’s career at Cal Poly, your parents came with us on a trip to visit, and as many people know, Carmela’s dad is a big influence on me when it comes to wine - we have said this many times, but he really introduced me to wine. So, of course, part of our plan in our visit to our daughter was to go to some wineries.

I really wanted to find a winery that was special, and so after doing some research, I found out about a winery called Turley who is known for having a sort of cult following for their wines, which are overwhelmingly old vine Zinfandels. By cult following, what we mean is that their wines are highly regarded but hard to get, and if you are not on their mailing list, you are probably not going to be able to get their wines. Every once in a while I’ll see a Turley wine online or in a wine shop or a restaurant, but they are not easy to find. 

So, you can tell part of the story, too, but we drove out to Turley winery on that trip and went to the tasting room. We met a lovely older woman who was doing tastings with some customers, and who of course your dad schmoozed, because that’s what he does, and we became fast friends. We did a tasting and, frankly, became pretty enamored with the wines. They were much different than I expected. Rather than being big, California overly oaked fruit bombs, these were juicy, complex, food friendly, delicious wines. Some of the best wines I have ever had. 

So, we became converts, your dad and I bonded over Turley Zinfandel, we joined the wine list and now get shipments of Turley wine several times a year, and since then, we have basically been fans of Zinfandel. And, specifically Turley Zinfandel

But we find that many people are just not that familiar with Zinfandel, or, if they are familiar with Zinfandel, they have a less than stellar opinion of the wine, generally based on some crappy wines made in the 1980’s, most notably led by the poorly regarded White Zinfandel which is actually a Rosé wine, and, also, I think, because some people who make California wines can’t help but try to make every wine taste like a Cabernet Sauvignon with too much oak on it, but I digress, and we’ll talk about that a bit more in a few minutes, too.

So, today we are going to talk about Zinfandel and why it should be on your wine list, we are going to taste three Zinfandels, including a Turley, which actually fits within our price cap parameter of under $20 - which is not usual for Turley wines . . .

But first . . . we have to do our shameless plug, right Carmela? First, we want to start by saying thank you very much for listening to us and for supporting our show, and if you have not had the chance to do so yet, now would be a great time to subscribe to our podcast  -  you just click that little subscribe or plus button, and it’s a free way to support us  - and a huge thank you to all of you who have subscribed already.

And, another great way to support us for free is to leave a nice rating and review which you can do on our website or on Apple podcasts or other podcast services so we can continue to grow our listeners.

You can also follow us and see pictures of the wines we are tasting and trying today on Instagram at thewinepairpodcast, and we are also on Threads, and you can contact us on our website thewinepairpodcast.com with any questions or ideas you have.

And, as we do every week, we’ll tell you someone we think you should tell about The Wine Pair Podcast. This week we want you to post about us, The Wine Pair Podcast, on your social media of choice - extra bonus if it is on Instagram or Threads and you @ us. Just share with people this episode, or any episode, or our social media - we just want you to share us with others!

ARTICLES and LINKS

• http://www.thirstwine.com/wineries/451

Topic: Why Is California Zinfandel Underrated? 09:25

Zinfandel is one of the oldest grape varieties in the world, and certainly one of the oldest wine grape varietals in the United States. Known as Primitivo in Italy and an old Croatian variety that I am not even going to try to pronounce - Crljenak Kaštelanski - Zinfandel has a long history. In fact, Zinfandel was first planted in the US on the East Coast in the 1830’s, and by the 1850’s had been well established in California, often brought in by Italian immigrants. 

Today, Old Vine Zinfandels in California, with plants that are well over 100 years old, produce some amazing grapes that make amazing wines and grow on these crazy plants that don’t look anything like a traditional grape vine. In fact, according to one article that you can find a link to in our show notes if you go to our website and look for this episode - statistics from the Historic Vineyard Society note that there are about 1,000 acres of Zinfandel vines over 100 years old in California. 

But, unfortunately, Zinfandel’s reputation was pretty damaged by two things which I alluded to a few minutes ago, and further brought down by what I call the hegemony of the big, punch-you-in-the face overly oaked California Cabernet style of wine. 

First, in the early 1970’s, a guy named Bob Trinchero who was the winemaker at Sutter Home winery discovered what he called White Zinfandel sort of by accident. He was taking runoff juice from Zinfandel, and when a batch of this White Zin didn’t fully ferment, he found that he had a low alcohol, sweet wine that people in the 1980’s and 1990’s drank like crazy. This is the wine that your grandma put ice cubes in and drank all day. But, let’s be honest, it is not a great wine.

Second, in the mid-1990’s, Zinfandel makers started making wines with super high alcohol levels, like in the 16% plus range, which Zinfandel can do quite easily, and sometimes doing so in order to get good ratings on their wines, and those wines were super hot, super strong, and tended to turn off the average wine drinker. 

Finally, with its mixed reputation and the rise of the big, oaky, California Cabernet’s, Zinfandel just sort of got lost. Zinfandel is a fruit-forward wine, but the best versions of it are in a style that is sometimes described as soft and velvety, and with lower levels of tannin and acidity, some people who are just used to the big Cabs don’t have palettes that are tuned to that kind of wine, even though it is a beautiful wine. And, as a reaction, I often find that more mass produced Zinfandels try to mistakenly imitate the big, oaky, California Cabernet style, or they are part of sweet red blends, and they just miss the point. 

In addition, Cabernets, especially in Napa and Sonoma, are big money makers, and they can charge a lot more for a Cabernet Sauvignon than they can for a Zinfandel, so many winemakers in that area just don’t make a ton of it any more because they can make more money per grape or whatever with Cabernet. Zinfandel is still the 3rd most popular varietal in California, and a little more than 8% of the state’s total crush volume was Zinfandel as recently as 2019. But, as recently as 1998, Zinfandel was the most planted grape. So things changed pretty fast. 

A great Zinfandel from top producers like Turley and Ridge, Zinfandel is a rich, smooth, complex wine with a great mouth feel and that goes with a large variety of foods. My personal take is that Zinfandel is overall underrated, and that it is not as popular or well respected as it should be. But that doesn't mean that I think that all Zinfandels that are being produced today are worthy of being rediscovered.

And that is the point of this specific episode. We have three different Zinfandels, all from California, including one Turley wine, and so we are going to see if we can tell the difference between these wines and a Turley wine, and what our impressions of them are. Maybe we will find them underrated, or maybe we will find that they are just trying to be too hard to be something other than what they are. 

So let’s talk a bit about the wines we chose for this episode.

ARTICLES and LINKS

• https://imbibemagazine.com/the-tangled-tale-of-zinfandel/ 
• https://www.guildsomm.com/public_content/features/articles/b/zachary-geballe/posts/reviving-old-vine-zinfandel
• https://pix.wine/the-drop/up-next-zinfandel/

California Zinfandel Wines We Chose for This Episode 17:08

As usual, all of the wines we have chosen for this episode are under $20, and at least 2 of them should be relatively easy to find because I bought them at a grocery store that did not have a very expansive wine selection. The last one, the Turley, can be much harder to find, but I have seen it available in the past on wine.com. So, while not impossible to find, it definitely is not something you can just pick up or even have your favorite wine shop order.

We are going to start with the Turley because I want to see how the wines stack up in comparison to it. That may not sound totally fair, but I am curious to see how we rate and review the Turley, and then how we think about the other wines next to it.

The Turley we are drinking is the 2019 Juvenile Zinfandel, and, as expected, this wine is made from younger vines, not the old vines, and from a broad swath of vineyards. This is what Turley says about this wine: The Juvenile is actually composed of a variety of young vines that have been replanted in several of our old vine sites. We tag the vine when we replant it so as not to mix the brand new vine with its much older neighbors, then pick these young vines separately and make a distinct wine. The vines that make up Juvenile range in age from about 6-25 years, and we pull from 18 of our best vineyards across California.

This wine also received a 92 rating from Robert Parker. So, while I may not always agree with his palette, a 92 rating from Parker is kind of a big deal. And, Antonio Galloni from Vinous also gave it a 90, and I think very highly of his ratings.

Turley was founded in 1993 by Larry Turley and they make about forty-seven different wines each year, most of them single vineyard, old vine Zinfandels, from all over California, and then also with some other reds like Petite Sirah for good measure, and we have also had several of their whites.

All of Turley’s vineyards are either certified organic or are in the process of getting certified, and the winery uses all natural yeasts, which is pretty cool.

The second wine we are going to drink is one of the least expensive wines we have ever had on the show, but it has received some decent ratings in the past. Again, this should be a wine you have no trouble finding in a local store on online. It is called the Gnarly Head Old Vine Zinfandel, and it comes from Lodi California.

While I couldn’t find a good professional rating for this vintage, which is the 2021, as recently as the 2019 vintage it has received 89 and 90 ratings.

What I like about the wine is that on the label, it shows a drawing of what an old vine Zinfandel plant looks like, and, again it just doesn’t really look like what you think of as a grape plant. The Zinfandel plants look like old, really short, gnarled trees, and the grapes come out of small shoots that are pruned every year.

I like this description from the winery: Older vines produce fewer grape clusters, but the small berries yield intense, dark fruit flavors. The grapes for this Zinfandel were harvested early in the morning while the weather is cool. This allows the grapes to start off cool and warm up gently for fermentation. After fermentation, the wine was racked onto French and American oak to concentrate the abundant fruit flavors and add complexity.

This wine was only $6.99 at the store I got it from, and I have seen it on wine.com for about $10. So, this will be a really interesting wine to compare with the Turley because they are definitely using old vines.

The last wine we are going to try is another one of those that I know you can find almost anywhere. Called 7 Deadly Zins Old Vine Zinfandel - get it, deadly Zins! - this wine is a 2019. And, I will note that one nice thing about Zinfandels is that they do not need to age very long - they are wines that can be enjoyed very young. 

This wine is made by the Michael David Winery, and we have had many of their wines on our podcast, including their Freakshow Cabernet Sauvignon and last week we had their Petite Petit Sirah. You can generally tell their main wines because the labels are sort of these outrageous circus scenes.

Anyway, the winery describes the wine as being mostly Zinfandel with a touch of Petite Sirah, which, frankly, I find really annoying. My POV is that they should just tell you what is in the wine. Sorry. Pet peeve. The other thing I find annoying is that their own website only has the 2018 listed. So, sorry, 7 Deadly people, but you are bugging me!!! I will try and keep an open mind as I drink the wine, but, again, I will just say that not being clear about what is in a wine, or how a wine is made is frustrating. Clever name or not!

Alright, that is enough from me. I think we should try these wines and see what we think - and we invite you to drink one of these wines, or another Zin, or just any wine you’ve got along with us if you like so you can participate with us!


ARTICLES and LINKS

• https://winelibrary.com/wines/zinfandel/2019-turley-juvenile-zinfandel-123339
• https://www.turleywinecellars.com/newsletter/2019-vintage-spring-release
• https://gnarlyhead.com/wines/old-vine-zinfandel/ 
• https://www.7deadlywines.com/7-deadly-zins/ 

California Zinfandel Wine Pairing Tasting and Reviews 24:05

Wine: Turley Juvenile Zinfandel (Click here to learn more about this wine on wine.com. Affiliate link)
Region:  California
Year: 2019
Price: $20
Retailer: winery (wine.com has listed it at $24.99)
Alcohol: 15.2%
Grapes: Zinfandel
Professional Rating: RP 92, AG 90

What we tasted and smelled in this Zinfandel:

• On the nose: Smoke, dark fruit, raspberry, red plum, dark cherry, dirt, vegetable 
• In the mouth: Tart, rich, a heater, juicy, fruit upfront, strawberry, sweet red cherry, dark cherry, unripe cherry, spice and wood on the back, a bit of a punch-you-in-the-face wine, big

Food to pair with this Zinfandel: Steak, marinated grilled flank, roast, barbecue, tri-tip, beef ribs, baby back ribs
 
As a reminder on our rating scale, we rate on a scale of 1-10, where 7 and above means that we would buy it, and 4 and below means that we are likely to pour it down the sink, and a 5 or 6 means we are likely to drink it and finish it, but we are probably not going to buy it. 

Turley Juvenile Zinfandel Wine Rating: 

• Joe: 9/10
• Carmela: 8/10

Wine: Gnarly Head Old Vine Zin (Click here to learn more about this wine on wine.com. Affiliate link)
Region: California, Lodi
Year: 2021
Price: $6.99
Retailer: QFC
Alcohol: 14.5%
Grapes: Zinfandel

What we tasted and smelled in this Zinfandel

• On the nose: Tree, earthy, wood, leather, not a ton of fruit, blackberry, blackberry bramble, blackberry leaves, ripe fig, fig preserves, pepper
• In the mouth: Not as much mouthfeel, tart, cherry licorice, candy sweet, clean, sweet raspberry, match that has just been struck, burnt wood, pencil lead

Food to pair with this Zinfandel: Steak, barbecue, grilled vegetables with balsamic marinade, figs with balsamic, crowd pleaser

Gnarly Head Old Vine Zin Wine Rating: 

• Joe: 7/10
• Carmela: 6/10

Wine: 7 Deadly Zins Old Vine Zinfandel (Click here to learn more about this wine on wine.com. Affiliate link)
Region: California, Lodi
Year: 2019
Price: $14.99
Retailer: QFC
Alcohol: 15%
Grapes: Zinfandel and touch of Petite Sirah

What we tasted and smelled in this Zinfandel:

• On the nose: Not much to the smell, raspberry, burnt match, rubbing alcohol, smells very tart, faint berry, potpourri spray
• In the mouth: Super tart, bad, vinegary, potpourri spray

Food to pair with this Zinfandel:  Nothing. 

7 Deadly Zins Wine Rating: 

• Joe: 2/10
• Carmela: 3/10

Which one of these are you finishing tonight?

• Carmela: Turley Juvenile Zinfandel
• Joe: Turley Juvenile Zinfandel

Do you think that Zinfandel is underrated?
Yes, if you get the right Zinfandel. A great Zinfandel will knock people’s socks off! But you have to choose the right wine. Inconsistent.

Taste profiles expected from California Zinfandel  42:12

• General 
  • Wine Folly: Blackberry, strawberry, peach preserves, cinnamon, sweet tobacco
  • Wine Folly - Lodi: Raspberry jam, peach preserves, blackberry bramble, hickory, star anise
• Turley
  • Winery: Bright, vibrant pepper and spice with lovely lifted red fruits, satiating acidity and a hint of blue fruits as well. Lithely textured with pure precision and tons of energy on the palate.
  • RP: The 2019 Zinfandel Juvenile has a medium ruby color and aromas of earth-laced red and black berries. The palate is soft and alluring with a wealth of ripe fruit and juicy acidity, and it finishes long and uplifted. It's a very approachable style this vintage.
  • AG: Sleek, polished and wonderfully nuanced. Crushed red berry fruit, spice, cedar and leather add pretty shades of nuance, with floral notes that perk up the finish
• Gnarly Head
  • Winery: Gnarly Head’s untamed vines produce full-flavored grapes, dense with aromas of blackberry bramble, juicy plum, and toasted oak. This medium-bodied wine boasts a balanced acidity and supple tannins for those who like unique, big wines with a little eclectic edge.
• 7 Deadly Zins
  • Winery: Full-bodied and seductive. Heaps of jammy berry fruit are followed by aromas of leather, oak and spice notes. On the palate the wine is round and layered showing flavors of dark fruits, currants and toffee through a lingering spice-touched finish.
  • Fine Wine House: Complex aromas of tart cherry, raspberry and caramel are wrapped in flavors of chocolate cake, vanilla oak spice, and plenty of wood smoke. Medium bodied with a rich smooth texture, mild tannins and a beautiful garnet color.

Outro and how to find The Wine Pair Podcast 44:30

Ok, so, Carmela, it is just about time for us to go, but before we do, we want to thank you very much for listening to us - and if you haven’t done so yet, now would be the perfect time to subscribe to our podcast and also a fantastic time to leave us a nice rating and review  - it’s a great and free way to support us and help us grow listeners.

We would also love to hear from you - you can leave a message for us on our website thewinepairpodcast.com, or you can email us at joe@thewinepairpodcast.com  - tell us about a wine you want us to review. And, follow us on Instagram and Threads so you can see pictures of all of these wines we are tasting and reviewing. 

And, how about you send this episode to someone you love - just text it to them - so they can share in the immense joy that is The Wine Pair Podcast!

Alright, with that, we are going to sign off, so thanks again, and we will see you next time. And, as we say, life is short, so stop drinking shitty wine.