Currently, I’m doing some research about one of my favorite wine varietals, Zinfandel. If you check out the shelves of TJ’s, you’ll see that almost every offering stems from Dry Creek, an appellation in Northern Sonoma County. This will be my first of several postings about Dry Creek Zinfandels; today we’ll talk about Hamilton-Stevens 2009 Dry Creek Zinfandel from Our Cellars, a name we’ve seen before.
The Wine: This wine is a Trader Joe’s exclusive, its label attached to a massive wine broker based in Healdsburg. Anyone who has shopped for wine at TJ’s over the years, you will recognize the Hamilton-Steven’s label, it has made many appearances under several varietals. So my educated guess is TJ’s has a relationship with this broker who tips them off to available grapes/juice/wine which TJ’s can bring to market. That’s where the trail of this wine’s exact origins goes cold. But because this wine touts the Dry Creek AVA, according to wine regulations we are assured 75+% of this wine is from the Dry Creek AVA.
The Experience:
Color: A fairly deep plum violet which morphs into a slightly more red hue along the rim.
Nose: A very strong fruit nose with only a hint of spice or pepper. (This can be indicative this is going to be a sweeter wine.)
Palate: Your first impression with this wine is its sweetness. Without question you will pick up ripe red and dark berry fruits. But beyond that, there is a lot of Residual Sugar (RS) in this wine, so you will taste ‘purple fruit leather’. If you want to taste jam in your wine, this wine has lots. There is very little spice or pepper in this wine. Even with 14.5% alcohol, the sweetness dominates. I’m sure this wine saw some barrel aging, but it’s pretty well hidden behind the fruit. There are very low tannins and acidic structure.
Bottom Line: Next-Wine-Please!
I wouldn’t give this wine to someone as an example of Dry Creek Zinfandel – it’s too sweet. I love Zinfandel and have had many; this wine just has almost no zest, pep or spice to it. This could be the caused by a stalled fermentation that could not be restarted resulting in very high RS. My gut tells me that’s why this juice ended up on the market. I don’t feel the $9 asking price delivers a $9 punch or value.
Question: What do you seek in a Zinfandel? Do you like its spice and tannins or do you like fruit forward Zins?
The Week of Zinfandel « Trader Joe's Wine Notes
Jan 23, 2011 @ 09:38:14
Apr 15, 2011 @ 18:26:27
Last spring I bought a bottle of Hamilton-Steven’s 2007 Dry Creek Valley Zin. I thought it was the tastiest bottle of wine I’d ever found for under $10. I went back & bought a case.
This year I haven’t been able to find any Hamilton-Steven’s Zin at TJ’s, and believe me , I’ve tried. (I live in Virginia.)
I was surprised that you weren’t impressed by the 2009, but I guess there’s no guarantee it even came from the same source as the 2007. That wine was just bursting with fruit, definitely “jammy”. It also clocked in at 14.5% ABV. It probably didn’t have as much structure & tannins as some people would like, but I thought it worked really well with hearty food, or just for sipping. One year later, and unfortunately I’ve finished off my whole case!
BTW thanks for creating this blog–I just discovered it & I’ll definitely be referring to it in the future. Any plans of comparing some of TJ’s Malbecs?
Apr 17, 2011 @ 17:54:39
@Paul, Vintage variation is always a possibility with wine. I don’t recall if I ever had the 2007 bottling. The 2009 was really way to sweet for me, certainly for a Zinfandel. It was a style of Zin which doesn’t jive with me because it lacked zest and tannic structure/backbone. I won’t write the entire brand off because of this one bottling, but I was bummed on this one.
Malbec is a great varietal, hopefully some hustle buys hit the shelves soon. I really enjoyed the Gascon offering, do check it out!
Cheers for the compliment, glad you enjoy the site; thanks for participating! -Matt
Jun 23, 2011 @ 23:00:09
Paul, have you ever been to the Dry Creek Valley??? You say it’s too jammy, but that’s really what DCV zins are all about… I agree with you that there is not as much spice as other DCV zins, but you really can’t hate on this wine for that. The fruit of the wine is a good representation of what a zin from this region should taste like. If you don’t want a fruit foreword zin, look somewhere besides a DCV zin. If you want a zin that you can chew on, the DCV is the place to go. I’m pretty sure Paul does not know what he is talking about when it comes to Sonoma wines, so as someone who is VERY familiar with the region, I say don’t just buy one bottle of this wine, get two or three. Unlike Paul, you won’t be dissapointed!
Jun 29, 2011 @ 21:22:49
@Shawn, I’m rather baffled at your scathing of not just this one review, but draw into question all other reviews with comments such as “I’m pretty sure Paul (you mean Matt) doesn’t know what he is talking about when it comes to Sonoma wines….” I’d encourge you to check my “Matt’s Top Picks” section where you will see three of the five wines are Zins from Dry Creek Valley. Oh, and this was so ‘different’ from what you describe “what DCV wines should taste like”, I wrote to the very well known wine writer/critic Steve Heimoff about what he ‘looks’ for in DCV Zins and appellations in general. My email subsequently became the subject of his daily blog. I tasted this wine blindly with some friends with other DCV Zins, they all made similar comments as mine. I’m very confident in not just this review, but all my reviews.
What were your tasting notes?
-Matt
Jun 23, 2011 @ 23:06:46
Sorry, Matt not Paul…