Today I attended my first wine seminar/tasting class.  "Zinfandel Madness - How California's Original Grape Varietal Has Inspired a New Generation of Winemakers" presented by Billy Grant from Four Vines (in place of Christian Tiajian who was sick).  It was part of the Boston Wine Expo at the Seaport Hotel/World Trade Center.  In summary it was a fantastic educational wine experience and I'll repeat next year with a similar class on a different wine.

When you enter the room each place sitting has 7 glasses each 1/4 full of wine samples and you have a key listing what is in each glass with space for you to add your comments.  The speaker walks through the differences of each glass one by one and in this case 4 of the 7 were from the speaker's winery.  What's priceless isn't the actual discussion about these particular wines, it's all the little side details which come up in regular conversation.  I'll get to some of those in a second.

The eight samples were from Four Vines - Sophisticate, Maverick, Biker, and Dusi; Gamba; Chateau Montelena; and Edmeade Piffero.  I had never had any of these samples before though I had read a review recommending Four Vines.  I'll say out of these 8 my personal favorites were the Gamba and the Four Vines Dusi. 

OK, some tidbits...

I had always thought bottles labeled zinfandel were predominantly if not completely zinfandel.  Not so.  Zinfindel is a very vulnerable grape, thin skinned, sensitive to sun.  It's almost always grown among other grapes, not just as a vineyard of that one grape.  Many of the other grapes are Italian varieties and when harvested they get combined with the zinfandel grapes all as one.  Much of the deep red in zinfandel is not from the zin, which has trouble imparting it's red from the skins, but instead is from these other Italian varieties.  And some of the punch in zin is from Syrah.

There was a discussion about matching wine with food.  When it comes to big spicy long finish wines it's all about the sauce on the food.  The strength of the wine has to live up to the sauce.  Meanwhile tannic wines go better with fatty dishes.  But the key in any case is to be able to taste both the wine and the food.  If one overpowers the other than half the experience goes to waste.  So the food pairing really is not about red versus white, it's about being able to taste both the wine and the food.

Also with food, wines with a good amount of acid go well with food which is generally why Rhone wines are considered good food wines but cabernet type wines actually do not.

When asked about aging wines he said wines basically have fruit, tannins, and acidity.  As wines age the fruit is the first thing to die down and then you're left with tannins and acidity.  Zinfandel, which is most appreciated for it's jammy fruit, is actually a disappointment if it ages more than a couple years after release by the vintner.  He even commented on famous brands like Turley which people sometimes save thinking it will be something special when opened after years but what they get instead is something brown and flat.  Anyway, fruit goes first, tannins go second leaving just acidity, and when acidity goes you just have flat old wine far past it's prime.  But he did say two types of zinfandel are exceptions to the rule - those which are "peasant" or "anarchy" styles - because those can age 5 to 10 years.

Big versus small vintners  Big guys buy large amounts of grapes, not always of consistent quality, and to turn maximum profit they pump heavily over the top of skins to extract the most from the skins.  Small vintners take a gentle approach carefully selecting their grape samples and being gentle in how they break up and submerge the grape skins.  The end products are of dramatically different quality.

On pH.  A wine with a pH of 4 may taste great now and seem like it would last a while but that pH means you definitely have to drink it young because it simply won't last.

On cold soaking.  It's heat and alcohol which help extract color from skins so this vintner doesn't believe cold soaking is the successful technique it's reputation suggests.

On dry versus sweet.  Everyone talks "dry" because that's the most respected and appreciated of the fine wines, however, in practice the vintners make sweet wines and buy sweet grapes.  They make their fortunes on sweet.

On East versus West.  It's not the ripening time which makes good East Coast wine a challenge, it's the water.  There's just so much water on the East Coast that the vines never have to struggle to find it.  He tells stories on the West Coast of vines sending out roots 50 to 100 feet to work their way to a water source.

On California regions.  Napa obviously is the top dog but as a result the other regions rib it alot, they say "Napa is for auto parts".  Amador is a great region for zinfandel but he says the pickers come from Fresno and they often call them the locusts because they pick every grape, ripe or not, so they can get paid by the bulk.  Russian River by the way is known for having a long finish in it's wines.  Paso Robles is mostly planted with cabernet sauvignon but that's a shame because it's a better region for zinfandel and they actually pulled out a lot of old zinfandel vines to make way for cab.   And Lodi by the way is very hot so it's hard to find enough grapes from there.

What is old?  Generally vintners claim whatever the age of their vines are is what counts as old.  But really it starts around 35 years.  That's about the time the roots get to 90-100 feet long and you start to get the attributes in the grapes recognized as old vine.

Hungarians by the way use the same species of oak for barrels which you find in the expensive barrels in France.

When picking grapes they want the deep purple grapes but not the red grapes.  Red grapes burst in your hand and spoil the samples.  Small vintners deliberately avoid the red grapes but many larger vintners use everything they can get.

Organic wine can be great but it is a tremendous gamble because many things can spoil organic wine and ruin the product.  You can farm close to organic, avoiding pesticides, without actually taking the risk to go that next step to being fully organic.

Anyway, that's probably enough to share.  The bottom line is I greatly enjoyed this event and learned quite a lot and not just about zinfandel.