Klinker Brick Old Vine Zinfandel 2008

I think that I’ve mentioned in the past that Ms Cocktail and I share an affinity for big Zinfandel wines from the Lodi region of California. Lodi is located in the center of California and as a result of this geographic location, it is hot and dry with a very long growing season. This does two things to the wines from there. They tend to have very intense fruit flavors and they also tend to be very high in alcohol.

This is not always a good thing. There is a derogatory term floating around the wine world to describe wines of this nature, they are often called “alcoholic fruit bombs”. A lot of times that term is used to identify Aussie wines however, the wines from Lodi seem to fit this description equally well. That being said, it does not mean that wines with these characteristics cannot be pleasant to drink. It just means that these wines won’t ever qualify on someone’s scale as a “wine of the century”.

This brings us to the Klinker Brick Old Vine Zinfandel. It certainly has the alcohol part of things down, coming in at 15.8 % ABV. That’s a big wine by anybody’s standard. However, I am going to point out that the 2008 vintage doesn’t have quite the same intensity of fruit that the 2007 vintage had. Unfortunately, that puts this particular wine a bit out of balance with the alcohol just dominating everything in the nose and on the palate. Is it drinkable? Certainly, but there are better values in this price range.

It is a clear, medium(+) intensity ruby colored wine that displays legs. It has a clean, developing nose of medium intensity displaying aromas of plum and red currant. It is a dry wine with medium acidity, medium tannin, high alcohol and medium body. It has medium intensity flavors of red currant, plum and vanilla with a medium length finish. It is an acceptable mid-priced wine that is ready to drink now but will not improve with time in the bottle.