Peter Franus Brandlin Vineyard Mount Veeder Zinfandel 2005
I’m on a bit of a zinfandel kick lately. Perhaps it’s the cold weather that brings out my desire for tons of fruit and huge forwardness. I picked up this bottle at Marquis tonight – who definitely have Vancouver’s best selection of zinfandel – and I was highly impressed.
Coming from Napa’s Mount Veeder AVA, this single vineyard zin offered up a tremendous nose of raspberry, pure expressive strawberry, briar, and a nice saline black olive savory side. The palate was textbook zinfandel: chocolate, strawberry, raspberry, cloves and cinnamon. I loved this wine. It was big and up front, but also had savory elements to the nose and finish (which was quite herbacious) that made this far more than a one-dimensional zinfandel. I did feel the heat to begin with, but the cold weather and my hearty shepherd’s pie made short work of that. I’m starting to think that high elevation zinfandel is my cup of tea – they certainly seem to carry far more complexity and balance than stuff that just sits in heat all day long. Also, this is good value for the BC market, at only $10 more than the winery release price.
Oh ya, and this is made from 80 year old vines and blended with a very tiny amount of mourvedre and carignan, probably for colour and tannin. And, ya, a 668 case production made from purchased fruit. This prompts me to seek out more from PF.
Excellent
$45 at Marquis
Jake
December 5, 2009
Yes! I’m glad you got a bottle of the ’05, and $45 is a great price…I think it’s $35 down here.
I want to try his Brandln Vineyard Mouvedre:
http://www.peterfranus.com/mourvedre.html
Still haven’t seen it anywhere yet, though.
Shea
December 5, 2009
Ya, I knew of PF, but when I saw your review I grabbed it. Marquis has the mourvedre. I’m going to pick up a bottle soon.