It was cold outside.  The snow was about six or seven inches deep on the ground.  At my apartment, I had seven bottles of wine standing on the dining room table; I had platters of cheese, pâté, bread, and crackers, too.  I was worried that people would not show up on account of the snow, but the prospect of seven wonderful Californian Zinfandels from Ridge Vineyards convinced each member of the panel to show up for a tasting I held two weeks ago.

So why Zinfandel?  Isn't that the stuff that White Zinfandel is made of?

Oh, my friends.  Zinfandel is a delicious medium-bodied wine that can range from plush and jammy to restrained and spicy.  Besides, the prospect of snowstorm after snowstorm made me yearn for the sunny fields of my home.  Not Korea, in case you were wondering.  California.  Glorious California.

Zinfandel is the quintessential Californian grape, having been introduced to the Bear Flag State around the time of the Gold Rush of 1849.  These vines are survivors, many having lived through that vinous nightmare known as Prohibition.  (And though we are quick to dismiss White Zinfandel, it was White Zin's popularity during the 70s and 80s that saved old vineyards from being ripped out to be replanted with more financially-successful varietals.)  Thus, more than perhaps any other type of varietal in the United States, we see very old Zinfandel vines-60, 80, and even 100+ year-old vines are not uncommon.

Old vines generally produce small yields with grapes that have very concentrated proportions of sugar and flavor vis-à-vis younger vines.  And, at the hand of master winemakers, old-vine Zinfandel can be incredible.

Hence, Ridge Vineyards.

Founded in the 1960s by a number of Stanford grads (and later helmed by the great Paul Draper, another Cardinal alum), Ridge Vineyards is known for high quality wines, from Chardonnay to their prized and expensive Monte Bello Cabernet.  They also make a full lineup of Zinfandels.

So.  I wanted to host a wine tasting for the Nota Bene, so what could I do?  Heck, why not a Zinfandel tasting?  And why not a Ridge Zinfandel tasting?

I bought up a bottle of nearly every Ridge Zin available in the District, which meant there were seven bottles of different vintages and different single vineyards.  The ten-person panel tried small pours of the first four wines, then took a food break (people were already getting drunk by this point, what with these Zins clocking in at a pretty significant ABV range in the low 14 percents to a high of 15.2 percent), after which it tried the last three wines.

Good Lordy, what good wines.

I had previously tried and liked the 2007 Geyserville and the 2007 Lytton Springs.  However, the big winner was the first wine: the 2005 Paso Robles.  This wine was a limpid, opaque color, but what it lacked in color it made up for in nose and body.  On the nose were currant and baking spices like cinnamon and clove, some leather.  The taste was undeniably port-like, with a concentration of dried fruit that was balanced with juicy tartness, like a baked apple.  There were also some hints of copper or clay at the end.  The body was characterized by excellent structure and balance, and it had a wonderfully long finish.  This was the uncontested favorite of the evening.

In comparison, the next wine-also 100% Zinfandel-was less well-integrated than the first.  The 2006 East Bench seemed hotter on the nose and tasted a bit vegetal, with plum and cedar fighting with stem and green olive.  The finish was hollow, and there was a touch of rubber boot as well.  To be fair, this was the first bottling from the East Bench vineyard, so it's bound to improve.  In fact, I'd like to lay down a few bottles to see how they develop over the years.

In my opinion, the 2006 Ponzo was the most feminine of the wines, which makes sense because it's from the cool, Pinot-dominated Russian River Valley.  I thought it had a smooth, gemlike quality to it, a flavor of cherry and bright berries washing over worn round stones.  This had a very light body and a peppercorn finish.  It was a SUPERB match for aged Dutch goat Gouda.

The 2005 Pagani Ranch was, if my notes are accurate, "a veritable cornucopia of fruit," with black cherry predominating.  This was a plush wine with a pleasing finish that was-again, if my notes are accurate-"smooth as f*ck."  Jillian Meek described it as "being in love AND having a puppy."  It was a hedonist's dream paired with dark chocolate-covered almonds.

The 2006 Geyserville was, well, disappointing.  Again, green vines, with a hint of roasted ginkgo nuts (a Korean thing) and a plasticine finish.  One person described this as having a nose like "Mr. Sketch markers."  Eh.  But I was expecting more from the 2007 version, which came next.  Strangely, the 2007 was not as spicy or peppery as I remembered.  And the 2007 Lytton Springs was, to me, undistinguished, though it was great with blue goat cheese and one of the crowd pleasers of the evening.

So what did we learn?

Vineyards and vintages make a huge difference.  I would love to try different vintages of the Paso Robles.  The Paso Robles is 100% Zin unlike most of the others in the tasting (which are usually "field blends"); thus, there are fewer factors to confound the tastebuds.

However, the big takeaway for me is that there are some excellent producers in California producing excellent wines.  Ridge Vineyards is definitely at the top of the list, and its wines are as a whole pretty exceptional-yet more reason to love the state!