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August 14, 2009

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Hiya Lenn!

Two quick comments: 1) Just tasted a 1978 Paso Robles Zin from Ridge recently, still pouring beautifully, albeit fully mature. Also, tasted a Geyerville Zin vertical not too long back, with offerings dating to as early as 1992, through 2003, and not a one was tired yet. So "conventional wisdom" be damned ...

2) Oddly enough, I just tried a Ridge wine from the Pato vineyards just this Monday (one of only two vintages where we worked with that vineyards); a Mataro, actually, from 2003. It was beautiful, unique, and ready to drink ...

Mr. Watkins! Always a pleasure to know that you're still keeping an eye on things back here on the east coast.

I would love to get my hands on some of those old Ridge wines...apparently I need to bring Nena out your way one of these days.

As I alluded to in the post...this wine was likely store upright for the past several years in a shop, so anything but ideal temperature and humidity.

Hope all is well with the family...

I'm with Christopher. The older Ridges are divine. I have some older (thought not 2000) Zins hanging around. I opened an '03 for WBW and on night one, it wasn't knocking me over, but on night two it seemed beautiful.

Thanks for making the extra effort to participate!

Drank some Ridge Zins last year in Miami, 92 Monte Bello, 92 Geyserville and 91 Lytton Springs.

All exceptional, chocolaty delicious!

Well greetings all, and thanks for the Ridge wine love, it's nice to see. I rather happen to of course be a fan! And yes indeed Mr. Lenn, I most definitely keep tabs on y'all back East; in fact, I got myself engaged in quite a few interestings strings on your site here a couple weeks back, where were you, laddy?

CW

I feel like chiming in on one of my favorite subjects: I've always been a huge Ridge fan. The 81, 82, 83, 84 string of vintages from Ridge helped me to cut my teeth on Zinfandels. Had the last 81 just about 8 or 9 years ago, and it was hanging on.

That said, I've had 10 disappointing older Zins for every 1 that made it to maturity (however you define 'maturity'.)

Aging Zinfandel is to rob it of what it does best - be fruity. I'm not saying it can't be done (e.g. Joe Swann, Ravenswood Monte Rosso, Renwood Grandpere) but I don't think it should be expected that eight year old Zin should be in top form (especially a low acid type like this one.)

And using Ridge as the benchmark is like using Shakespeare as your benchmark for poets!

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