Open That Bottle Night – Belated

We actually did open this bottle of wine on the OTBN date 2 weekends ago, I just had not gotten around to writing about it yet. I thought maybe since it was so far after the fact I shouldn’t, but then I figured what the heck.

I had originally thought that I could convince Megan to open one of our Caymus Cabernet’s which is what I stated I would probably open on Farleys blog, Behind The Vines. When the time came though, it was not the Cabernet that we opened but another special wine from Caymus, the 2003 Zinfandel. Yes Caymus makes a Zinfandel, and a damn good one at that. They only sell it from the tasting room so on 2 of our visits to Napa we scored bottles from both the 2003 and 2004 vintage.

Unfortunately I can’t write much background on the wine because Caymus does not list this wine on their website. But I am sure you are saying “John, don’t you have it in your notes?” Well that is the second unfortunate thing, I cannot seem to find my tasting notebook from that year.

So here are my notes on the wine –

Nose – Fig, black currant jam, caramel, coffee, vanilla bean

Taste – Pine, raisins, cherry and clove

Mouthfeel – soft and full bodied, white pepper spiciness towards the finish

Finish – dry and long

This Zin rocked! Caymus’ excellence in making wine was definitely evident with this bottle, which is why we bought it. The aromatics were extremely powerful, leaping out of the glass with both hands and pulling my nose right down into the wine. Very well balanced with the tannins playing a little tug-o-war in my mouth which was nice, as it provided some good structure to the wine. I think we paid around $30 for it which I wouldn’t mind paying again. It definitely rivals the other California Zin’s that are top performers at this price point.

Cheers!