Zinfandel Part II

Last week, I suggested that the pejorative term "quaffable" has particular resonance to American ears, as it recalls a Puritan distrust of bodily pleasure. While I found this skepticism toward mere delight suspicious, I did say there should be thinking wines as well as drinking wines. The Zinfandels we tasted, whatever their merits, were drinking wines. 

Last night, Tracy and I sat down to a bottle of Turley Zinfandel, often considered to be, if not the best, then among the best of Zinfandels. I'm not sure the Turley qualifies as a thinking wine. I will say, however, that it fitted quaffability with tiny purple wings and sent it flying up and away from the swamp of mere delight and into the light of hyperbolic deliciousness. Wine this good doesn't need to be intellectual. It raises drinkability to its highest expression. So:

2007 Turley Napa Valley Zinfandel, Tofanelli Vineyard ($54)

This wine has impeccable balance. The classic Zinfandel sweetness is present but gentle against the tongue. Berries and sweet fruit flavors show themselves alongside a restraining dryness. It's not juicy or jammy or sugary or syrupy (potential pitfalls for Zinfandels), but it bursts with flavor. Also, while this wine contains the highest alcohol content of any we've had so far (15.7%), it's hardly detectable.

And the flavors? There are many, though they're also understated. We picked up plum and blackberry, molasses and sugarcane, dark chocolate and tobacco, "earth,"cocoa, vanilla, and "cheese rind, in a good way" (Tracy). We also detected a spiciness, though it wasn't bright and scratchy but calm and mellow: a tide of clove and pepper rises on the sides of the tongue after a moment and ebbs quickly. And the roundness and smoothness of the texture, the way it slides lightly across the tongue, reminds me of a Chardonnay. 

We did notice some questionable things. The nose is a little restrained--there's not as much happening in the bouquet as I expected there would be. Also, the finish is lightening fast. I'm not sure this is a bad thing, however. We kept remarking on how much we wanted to keep drinking this wine, how it was difficult to stop. Half the bottle was gone in a flash, though it felt that we had just begun the tasting.

Tracy and I both rated this wine a 24 on our 30-point scale. We were both surprised, in a way, that it didn't rate even higher, but perhaps it was simply because, despite all its amazingly delicious and quaffable qualities and tiny purple wings, this Turley didn't manage to lift us off of the ground.