The ZAP Zinfandel Celebration

Good Eats & Zinfandel Pairing | Zinfandel Festival

We are members of ZAP (Zinfandel Advocates and Producers). On Thursday night, January 26, we did our volunteer stint at the Good Eats & Zinfandel Pairing event. We had a chance to roam around on our dinner break and taste some Zinfandel paired with gourmet appetizers from various local restaurants. Some of our favorites eats:

Café Gibraltar – Montara
Wild Boar Medallions served on Sardinian couscous – our favorite of the night
John Ash – Santa Rosa
Niman Ranch pork carnitas
Joe DiMaggio’s – San Francisco
Smoked duck breast with porcini and pancetta polenta
Tres Agaves – San Francisco
Albondigas – spicy meatballs
Hurley’s Restaurant – Yountville
Wild Boar braised with Zinfandel served on ruffled polenta

Saturday’s Zinfandel Festival - A Tasting of Zinfandel

The Saturday Zap fest is broken into two sessions. The morning session is open to the trade and ZAP volunteers. The afternoon session is open to the public and is hugely attended. The afternoon session is so crowded that it is difficult to maneuver and most of the popular wineries have unorganized lines.

We arrive at the morning session with our wine glass and spit cup. We stayed until 2:15 when our palates cried for a rest. We estimate that we were able to taste, not swallow, some 50 or so Zinfandel wines during that time period. More than 200 wineries are pouring samples of their Zinfandel.

We tried to concentrate our tasting on the wineries that we were not familiar with. We also had to get a taste of some of our favorites just to see how they were doing.

Here are the best of our tastings. We used our 5 point rating scale to judge. It is quick an easy for us. One thing for sure, we have tasted wines before and thought they were great. When we try them at home with a meal, they fall short.

5.0 Zins

Kuleto Estate – 2003 Napa
Robert Rue Vineyards – 2004 Wood Road Reserve
Saddleback Cellars – 2003 Old Vine Napa Valley
Talty Vineyards & Winery – Filice Connolly Napa Valley
Terraces - 2003 Napa Valley

4.5 Zins

August Briggs – 2003 Napa Valley
Lava Cap Winery – 2003 Reserve Sierra Foothills
Mount Aukum – 2003 El Dorado – great value at $18
Mutt Lynch Winery – 2004 Portrait of a Mutt, Sonoma Country– terrific value at $15
Starry Night Winery – 2003 Old Vine, Tom Feeney Ranch – 4.5