First American wine

[joeyz6]

I thought I would briefly share an interesting experience I had last night. I went to have dinner at the house of one of the other English teachers, along with her husband and another English teacher and her husband. As a Christmas gift a couple of months back, I had brought them a 2001 Rancho Zabaco Dancing Bull Zin. (Not the finest wine I know, but I needed something inexpensive that I was sure they couldn't find anywhere here)
Anyway, they popped it last night. It was the first time, for all four of them, drinking an American bottle. They were all quite pleased. The first husband (the host) is a wine lover and has a 1000-bottle cave, about half of which is vintage Bordeaux, third, fourth and fifth growths I think. He said the nose reminded him of a Beaujolais Nouveau because of all the fruit -- he cited cherry and banana -- but that it had more body than BN. They thought it lacked subtlety (I agree) but said that it was rich, and fruity enough that it was slightly sweet. The host said he'd have almost served it as a dessert wine or an aperitif. Overall, they liked it.
It was funny watching them as they took their first sips. I could tell they were a little nervous to be drinking non-French wine! They have so much pride ...

We followed it with an '89 Camensac from his cellar, which was drinking very very well. Interesting to compare the robes of the two. The Zabaco was flat-out dark purple, whereas the Camensac was a deep, clear red; not super-dark anymore but definitely hadn't faded completely yet.

[winoweenie]

Very interesting story Joey. I have a friend who lives in Bordeaux that's in the flooring biz who makes 2 or 3 trips over a year. He always packs a couple of bottles of crappy juice and spends an hour apologizing for it. Then I open something and he gets this look of horrified puzzlement that's hilarious. He just can't believe that his stuff is so bad and this made in the good-ole'-USofA stuff is so good. I always offer him a couple of bottles to take back and he always politely refuses saying he has some REALLY good bottles at home. When queried about the extent of his cellar his reply is " My rack holds 14 bottles ". WW [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Glass_A_Day]

I was in London for the weekend and was suprised at how much bad French wine is pushed off everywhere. When I got home last night it was fun to open a big red. Subtlety is only good when the wine is...