Best Zin available now?

[stevebody]

I've probably tasted 200 Zins in the past six months and the one that sticks particularly in my memory was the Hartford Russian River '00. It was wonderfully complex and had an odd, fascinating aroma of lanolin at first opening. I had it with my darlin' on Valentine's Day and, over the course of three hours, it opened, breathed, and evolved remarkably, finishing up as almost a totally different wine than the one we opened. It was almost like a Barolo by the time we finished (the ONLY time we've finished a bottle of wine in one evening since we've been together!) and lingers in my memory still as a completely hedonistic experience that tickles my wine-snot synapses as well. It cost $19.99 at the time we carried it at Esquin and is regularly about $24. Hartford makes several excellent single-vineyard bottlings but none was appreciably better than this Cuvee.

I also had the '99 Ballantine Napa, which was, for $15, easily the best sub-$20 Zin I've tasted. Runners up were the Pedronelli Mother Clone, the Cedarville California, and, as usual, the Seghesio Sonoma.