Red Zinfandel
Red Zinfandel is known as an American grape, but may have its origins in Southern Italy in the Primitivo grape. Red Zinfandel makes wonderful, rich, full-bodied spicy reds that are packed with ripe berry fruit and supple tannins. They are usually ready to drink within a couple of years. The prominent flavors are blackberries, spices, and ground pepper.
Cheeses that pair especially well with Red Zinfandel are the harder, saltier cheeses. Among them are Asiago, certain spicy blue cheeses, Cheddar, Gruyère, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and my favorite of all, Dry Jack.
Ballentine
with P’tit Basque. Good!
Though the wine was a little strong.
Ballentine and Parrano. The red zin was too strong for the cheese. It needed a lighter wine.
Folie à Deux 2000 (Tasted in 2005) Bowman Vineyard, Amador County. $9.99 at World Market, but it's usually twice this much. World Market got a deal and bought out all 2300 cases of it that were made. 13.5% alcohol. I broke a bottle of this in the store and noticed right away its light color and fresh aroma, just from the puddle on the floor. It is a clear cherry red color, very unusual for a red Zinfandel. Very light. The label reads: "Amador County is known for its exceptional Zinfandel. This vineyard produces a lively wine with supple berry flavors and a hint of peppery spice." Easy drinking Zin. Super aromatic. It smells like raspberries, spice and raisins, and then something almost like a port. Dense aroma. Fruity mid-palate followed by spice and chocolate. Intense wine, but light on the palate for a Zinfandel. It has a gorgeous finish that, at first, seems like it's just going to fall off, and then it picks back up and comes in with light spice and pepper. Then there is a raisin flavor. Something also tastes a little salty. The winery was founded by two psychiatrists, who named their business after a condition known as "folie à deux" -- when two people share mutual fantasies. It says "Share the Fantasy!" on the bottle. This wine seems to be very cheese-friendly (a requisite for me) and is also easy with foods.
*Folie à Deux with Airedale cheese. Edam-like cheese from New Zealand. Wonderful! I put these together just because I was in the mood for something milky and tangy. The wine makes the cheese kind of nutty and I can taste the chocolate more in the wine. I like the spices of the wine with the creamy taste in the cheese. This is one of those eternity pairings where the cycle never ends, eating the cheese and then drinking the wine and then eating the cheese...
*Folie à Deux with Farmhouse Gouda, 5 year. Nutty, butterscotchy, salty Gouda candy. This is also wonderful. Sometimes this cheese gets bitter with wines, but this time, no. It's great. The salt makes it a little stronger than the cheese, but the nutty, rustic flavors in the farm cheese are countered by a wild Zin taste, though not too wild.
Niebaum-Coppola Diamond Series Red Label Zinfandel 2002 (Tasted in 2004) $15 or so at a grocery store. 13.5% alcohol. This was a gift. My friend had had some Coppola wine at a restaurant, probably Cab, but saw this label and bought this instead. This wine comes from various CA viticultural regions -- Napa, Sonoma, Paso Robles, Lodi, and Amador County. Barrel-aging results in a rich, concentrated wine. On the label, it says it has a brilliant ruby color, intense aromas of ripe red currants, exotic spices and crème brûlée, flavors of raspberry, blackberry, and luscious dark fruit. Hint of cracked black pepper with a smooth finish. It should be good with braised ribs or wild mushroom risotto. This wine is 11% Petite Syrah and also includes some old vine Zinfandel. It spent 12 months in French oak. I had some trouble on the website, but it's http://www.niebaum-coppola.com. Dark red/purple. It smells like dark, ripe fruit, spices. Stronger tannins than pure Zinfandel. Some sweetness, disappears kind of quick, trademark spice and pepper. Rich, full, herbaceous, woody, and fruity.
Niebaum-Coppola with Vella Dry Jack. I was looking for something different to do in class. It's good together, but the Seghesio Zinfandel is better with this cheese. With the Niebaum-Coppola, I get some bitterness and the cheese doesn't accentuate the fruit in the wine. I also don't get much focus on the chocolate and pepper flavors in the rind of the cheese. It is tangy together.
Peterson Zinfandel, 2001 (Tasted in 2004) Ambiente wine. Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel. 13.6% alcohol. Only 750 cases were made of this. Dry reek is in Sonoma County where the days are warm and the nights are cool. The soil is well-draine and gives fully ripe grapes. The grapes used in this wine are both Benchland and Mountain Zinfandel, plus some Petite Sirah, Carignane, and ataro to add complexity and mouthfeel. Unmanipulated, unfined, and unfiltered. http://www.petersonwinery.com The label has a picture of a deer on it. The wine is dark ruby red and dense.
Rancho Zabaco with 6 month
Manchego. It
wasn’t bad together, but it didn’t really match. The cheese was kind of sweet and the red zinfandel was also
sweet, and a little too burning for the cheese. There was a touch of bitterness and sourness.
Still, it wasn’t bad at all. We
just tasted a perfect pairing, so of course it seemed worse in comparison.
Rancho Zabaco, with Vintage Irish Cheddar. This wasn’t so bad, but the bitterness of the aged cheddar messed with the wine. It has a lot of bitter aftertaste, but it almost seems appropriate with the crazy wine and the sharp cheese.
Renwood 2002, Sierra Series
(Tasted in 2004) Wiggy's. 13.5% alcohol.
http://www.renwood.com
*Renwood Zinfandel with Mixed Herb Goat Cheese. Fresh goat's milk cheese covered in herbs and spices. I am sure this won't go together, but the cheese is sitting here on my desk at perfect room temperature, so I must taste it with this wine. Wow. I kind of like this. The cheese makes the wine taste even fruitier, and the wine brings out the almost Italian taste of the cheese with its garlic and herbs. Still, the wine overpowers the cheese. But the cheese is so tangy, it doesn't completely disappear. It's such a strange tasting, that I a putting a star next to it so I can try it again sometime. This pairing would probably confuse students in a pairing class.
Renwood Zinfandel with Reblochon. This is a light Brie-type cheese with a firmer crust. The cheese is light, buttery, and woody. I put these together because they just happened to be sitting around. They didn't do too well. They didn't fight like they could have, given the mold and bacteria on the outside of the cheese. Instead, the cheese was overpowered by the thick, juicy wine. I lost the delicate milk in the cheese. Still, since the cheese has a good bit of character and does have a woody aftertaste, it holds up ok.
Ridge California Geyserville 2000 (Tasted in 2003) $35 at Grapevine. 14.9% alcohol. I drank this for Tracy's birthday. 66% Zinfandel, 17% Carignane, 17% Petite Sirah. From Sonoma County. It is full and complex with firm acidity. The Zinfandel and Carignane grapes were broken at crush to extract the full flavor. They left the Petite Sirah as whole berries to moderate tannins. It ws aged in American oak, some new and some older. I heard that this wine is not going to be made anymore. It was wonderful. I have had it before and loved it both times. It was so full and rich with luscious dark berry fruit. I have had two bottles of this. I went back and got a third because I love it so much and I have heard that they are going to start using the grapes for other wines instead of this blend. If I had the money, I would buy the last 10 bottles in Austin.
Ridge California Geyserville with Gouda, two year. These were good together. The Gouda is hard and salty with hints of nuts and caramel. The wine held up to it well because it was so fruity and thick. The cheese tasted like salty candy with the fruity wine. The textures were also good together. It was a little like the Dry Jack/Zinfandel pairing, but more robust.
Rodney Strong Knotty Vines Zinfandel 2001 (Tasted in 2005) $14.99 at Austin Wine Merchant. 14.7% alcohol. Sonoma County, CA. I was looking for something comparable to Seghesio, and this was suggested. It has more bottle age on it than I usually get for my Seghesio Zin, but was still a lighter, more elegant style than some of the big fat Zins out there. It has medium body (for a Zin) and a nice, tart, lightly spicy flavor. The bottle reads: "Produced from the finest vines, this Zinfandel has rich, forward berry flavors accented by a hint of spice. Superbly balanced in an approachable, elegant style, this wine is ready for current consumption and will continue to gain depth and complexity in the bottle for the next 5-10 years." It was made by Rick Sayre and Tom Klein, but the winery was founded by Rodney Strong, who was a dancer. http://www.rodneystrong.com
Rodney Strong Knotty Vines Zinfandel with Vella Dry Jack. I only tried this wine with one cheese and then drank the rest of the bottle because I was lazy and it was good. The pairing was not as felicitous as I had hoped, but then once the wine opened up, it tasted better. At first I got a metallic, dirt taste, and then later the chocolate flavors in both the wine and the cheese emerged. It wasn't perfect, but it was good.
Rosenblum Vinters Cuvee XXVII (Tasted in 2005) $9.99 at World Market, on sale. 14.6% alcohol. Rosenblum is known for its variety of Zinfandels. the bottle says: "This Zinfandel is a blend of wines from various regions of California. The cuvee concept allows us to produce a rich and fruity wine by combining separate, unique lots of Zinfandel representing the finest characteristics of the state's coastal, inland, mountain and valley fruit. Our final blend shows lovely raspberry and cherry fruit, and an overall complexity rare to comparably priced Zinfandels." http://www.rosenblumcellars.com It is a bright cherry, candy apple red color, almost purple. It is clear around the edges, but denser in the middle. The aroma is of bright berries and spice, and then something else spicy that is like a mulled red wine. The alcohol burns my nose. Very rich and full-bodied, full alcohol taste, complex spices. The finish is like bright cherries, and then there is some chocolatey bitterness. It reminds me of a really good spicy berry pie.
Seghesio 2001 (Tasted in 2003), Sonoma, with Vella Sonoma Dry Jack. This is such a perfect pairing. The fruit in the Zinfandel brings out the most wonderful flavor of chocolate from the rind of the cheese that has been rubbed in cocoa, pepper, and oil. I can not think of a better pairing than these two. I can't quit eating these two together because I don't want the experience to end. The wine is so warm and the cheese has a baked quality to it. It is perfect.
Seghesio 2001, Sonoma, with Vintage Irish Cheddar. Also wonderful. The sharp cheese blended well with the full fruit and spice of the wine. They stood up to each other well.
Seghesio 2001 with Gorgonzola Naturale. Awful! Like chewing on aluminum foil.
Seghesio 2001 with Cave Aged Gruyère. Pretty good, but the wine overpowers the cheese a little bit, even though this was a pretty pungent wheel. The cheese is rustic, tangy and salty, which is good with the big, fruity red.
Seghesio 2002 (Tasted in 2004). $15.79 at Grapevine. 15.2% alcohol! This wine is excellent. It is from Sonoma, CA. It is a dark, dense ruby red and smells like burning alcohol and ripe blackberries. It has a pronounced spiciness. It is an extremely full-bodied wine with a peppery finish. It was barrel-aged in French and American oak. Italian immigrant, Edoardo Seghesio, planted his first vineyard in Sonoma county's Alexander Valley in 1895. In the years preceding and following Prohibition, the vineyards and winery produced wine for local customers who purchased it by the gallon. Larger customers shipped wine via the railroad. Following WWII, the family was a larger, regional producer of wine who sold to other wineries. Then, in 1983, at the encouragement of the younger generation, the family began to bottle their wines under the Seghesio label.
*Seghesio 2002 with Four Star Cheddar by Grafton. Oooh, boy is this cheese good! It just melts in my mouth. This cheese has gone with just about every wine I have tried. It is sharp and aged, but also very mellow and smooth in its finish. It is delicious with this wine. How strange. I get a chocolate taste with this pairing. The cheese has such a great mouthfeel and really coats the tongue. Then the wine is so nice and thick on top of it. It is like layers of cake and icing. I can't decide what I like the best -- the wine or the cheese. The cheese really brings out the alcohol in the wine. The sharpness of the cheese really rides through on the berries in the wine. I like the woody flavor of the cheese with this fruity, oaked wine. The pepper pops back up at the end. This is a long-lasting pairing. I love it.
Seghesio 2003 with HEB New York Style Sharp Cheddar. Good, but a little too sharp. Nice milky aftertaste.
*Seghesio 2003 with Vella Dry Jack. This is the most perfect pairing ever. The pepper and cocoa in the rind of the cheese brings out the similar flavors in the wine. The cheese is hard and chewy, and sturdy enough to stand up to this wine. I've tried other Red Zins with this cheese and none are quite as elegant. Some are just too overpowering, but this one is very refined tasting and lets the cheese flavors shine through. I also tasted it with blackberries, but they were too sweet and overpowering. The dried black cherries worked the best because there was some bitterness that went nicely with the tannins in the wine and the cocoa in the cheese. It is best to eat a bite of the cheese first, then have a sip of wine, and then have a small amount of fruit to get the full effect. The dried fruit seemed to lengthen the finish of the wine. Cranberries were not as good with it.