TN '96 Rosenblum "White Cottage Vnyd"

[Karena Shannon]

Saw this, and thought it would be interesting to compare Rosenblum’s use of this fruit to White Cottage’s style. It’s getting hard to keep all of Rosenblum’s single-vnyd Zin offerings straight nowadays, don’t they have like twelve or thirteen of them out now? Served BBQ baby backs with it, something that most Rosenblum zins can handle with ease, but not this one. This tasted like a lighter version of Deer Park’s Howell Mtn. Zin blended with White Cottage’s zin. The spice and zip of the former were present, along with the berry fruit of the latter, but the concentration was far below either of them. We waited and waited, hoping that the wine would bulk up with some air, but to no avail. Game and Set to the Johns’.
It wasn’t a bad zin, just one that did not merit a single-vnyd designation, nor the $20 price tag. It would have been a nice component in their Napa Vly Zin, which I gather is now discontinued: now it’s all single vnyd stuff or it goes into the Vintner’s Cuvee (or blend---y’all know what I mean <G> ).