Wine review: A Le Cuvier Zinfandel Taste-Off!

2000, 1st bottling: 20 winehiker points
2000, 2nd bottling: 18½ winehiker points

President’s Day Weekend will find me galavanting to Paso Robles for a four-day winehiking-go-round. I’ve got a couple of good hikes lined up for the nine winehikers who are joining me, plus a couple of scheduled tastings at two of the local Paso wineries.

One of those wineries is Eberle Winery, whose zinfandels I tasted at last Saturday’s ZAP Festival in San Francisco. I had felt that Eberle’s 2005 Zinfandel blended from their Steinbeck and Wine Bush Vineyards warranted inclusion in my top five picks for the day.

One of the Paso Robles wineries that did not have a table at ZAPFest was Le Cuvier. I suppose you could say that Le Cuvier has a pretty good reason for not attending ZAP: they don’t have to.

The proof is right there on the Le Cuvier website:

PLEASE NOTE: the Elliptical Society (our wine club) is now fully subscribed, & Le Cuvier wines are only available for purchase by members of the club. If you would like to be on our Wait List to become a member of the Elliptical Society, please email jim@lcwine.com.

I imagine that, quite like Mr. Stephen B. Herrick, Wine Director of the famous and exclusive Bohemian Club told me in our cab ride last Saturday morning, 60 people have to die each year for 20 straight years before I’ll ever gain entry into Le Cuvier’s Elliptical Society.

But I would certainly join. Even if I have to wait ’til I’m on my deathbed.

Just one… more… taste…!

Why? Because I’ve tried a few Le Cuvier zins recently. Sometime back, not too long ago, my friend Vindu managed to pluck the correct stars from the sky and therefore obtain one of those rare and coveted Elliptical Society memberships. Recently we sat down to conduct a “taste-off” of two different bottlings of Le Cuvier’s 2000 Zinfandels.

Now here’s where it gets interesting: John Munch, winemaker at Le Cuvier, has done something I find myself wishing other winemakers would do. For his 2nd bottling in 2005, John held back a portion of the wines from his 2000 harvest for an astonishing 4 ½ years of barrel aging. In other words, both the 2003 bottling and the 2005 bottling are the same wine; one just had two more years of barrel time. So why not compare them in a taste-off?

Wine not indeed.

Bottling No. 2 was oh-so-good, and it popped 18½ winehiker points out of me. But HA! – that was nothing compared to the Perfect 20 score I gave to Bottling No. 1. My Goodness, I’ve only accorded 20 points to one other wine, and that was a Beringer’s Nightingale, a lab-botrytized dessert-style blend of Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc. Ah, Sweet Nectars of the Ages, both of them.

But I know what you’re about to ask: “Why did two years’ additional barrel aging result in a lower score for the ‘05 bottling?”

I’ll let my tasting notes highlight the differences:

2000 Zinfandel, Bottling No. 1
Fine violet color, deep berry spice, a little barnyard/yeast aroma upon pouring. Balance aspects are perfect! The body is perfect! Luscious berry and cassis flavors, hint of fudge – velvety!! Clean, lingering finish, sublimely sweet. Absolutely the best zinfandel I can recall drinking for some time. Doesn’t require food – a solid drinker’s zin non pareil.

2000 Zinfandel, Bottling No. 2
Fine violet color as in the first bottling, yet slightly darker, no doubt due to extra barrel time. Slight wet dog aroma with deep berry fruits, vanilla, mint, gin berries, and mild tobacco – a complex zin indeed. Almost perfect, balance-wise, but with detectable acidity on the palate – this wine’s only detractor. Luscious body. I wish I had a body like this! Intense berry flavors with notes of caramel and dark chocolate; I surmise the extra oaking deepens the chocolate essence. Clean, layered finish. Exceptional, but doesn’t jump out of the glass quite like Bottling No. 1.

Every time I’ve passed through Paso Robles in recent years, I’ve told myself that I should spend a long weekend, just with friends. Tasting Le Cuvier wines was finally the kicker. I guess you could say I’ve plucked a lucky star of my own to have a friend like Vindu, who has arranged a barrel tasting with John Munch for all of us while we’re in town.

Wait list be damned – I may not come back!

~winehiker

This entry was posted on Friday, February 2nd, 2007 at 5:33 pm and is filed under grape squeezins, wine reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.