Sobon Rocky Top Zinfandel wins Zin Blind Tasting
It has been three years since we did our last tasting of Zinfandel bargain wines but remarkably the same wine, different vintage, took the top honors. Vintage Wine Taster Joe Fama hosted the blind tasting and did an amazing job of researching Zinfandel wines. He sampled many before settling on six final wines for the tasting. In addition, Joe did a little comparison of Zinfandel wines by location. There were three wines from Amador County and three wines from the Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County.
The scoring was very close on the wines but in the end it was the Sobon Estate 2009 Rocky Top from Amador County that had the highest rating of the six wines. To judge the wines we used a free score-card found on the WCG Website. Here are the results of the tasting of the wines in order, price, and place of purchase.
- Sobon Estate 2009 Rocky Top – $13.99 K&L Wines
- Joel Gott 2009 Dillian Ranch 2009 – $21.99 K&L Wines
- Miro 2010 Zinfandel, Piccetti Vineyards – $21.99 Weimax Wines
- C.G. DiArie 2007 Zinfandel – $16.99 BevMo
- Pedroncelli 2009 Mother Clone – $12.99 Weimax
- Dashe 2009 Dry Creek Valley – $24.99 K&L Wines
Rocky Top 2009
In my opinion the Miro was just outstanding. I am much more a Dry Creek drinker. Most Amador Zins tend to be jammy and not as fruity as Dry Creek. Just my opinion.
A favorite of ours is the Pedroncelli Mother Clone Zinfandel. This winery has been in Dry Creek since 1927. They do not have a ton of overhead costs and pass much of that savings on to the consumer.
Joe