2003 Kiona Red Mountain ZInfandel

[dananne]

We tasted and purchased this in August while visiting with the founders' grandson at the winery (most of the time was spent talking about Gonzaga basketball, as he's a student there and I'm a big Zags hoops fan). Uses estate grapes on Red Mountain, and it has a very limiteid production.

First a word of warning -- this should not be treated as a table wine. Think of it as a dessert wine. It packs a 17% alc punch and explosive, very sweet, jammy fruit. It would be a perfect foil for chocolate brownies. Very dark ruby color, with raspberry jam on the nose. Ultra sweet jammy red fruit with a long, Port-like finish. Yummy stuff, but it would kill most foods. The only thing we thought you could possibly pair it with would be BBQ with a sweet sauce. Even then, the sauce would have to have enough sweetness to hold up -- most vinegar-based BBQ sauces would clash badly. Fun wine, though. Could be a sipper from cordial glasses as a stand-alone dessert, or could make one heck of a reduction sauce to pour over ice cream, though a $35 price tag might make that not worthwhile. The winery doesn't list this with their dessert wine offerings, but that's how you should consider it. Not quite a Zin Port, but unlike any Zin I've tasted, that's for sure.