napa valley wine tasting at zachy's

i haven't posted on a zachy wine tasting in a while (since the chilean wine tasting last summer). that's not to say i haven't attended a bunch of them over the last few months (my favorite, of which, was the awesome burgundy tasting held last october). so in a week that kicked off with some great beer at the blind tiger ale house, the weekend is all about california (and, more specifically, napa valley) wine. how better to usher it in than with a sunny warm day :D

on to the wines. there were four wineries represented: honig, grgich hills, bennett lane, and heitz wine cellars. while all the selections tasted were good, the highlights for me were the cabs - specifically the heitz cabs. it seemed like one heitz selection was better than the next. the heitz "martha's vineyard" (named after the vineyard, not the island) 2004 was undoubtedly the stand out of the entire tasting.

in terms of whites, the honig 2007 sauvignon blanc, grginch hills estate grown 2007 fume blanc, and the bennett lane 2006 maximus white were all excellent. my personal favorite was the bennett lane blend, which included sauvignon blanc, chardonnay and muscat grapes. it was truly an inspired wine.

my least favorite, unfortunately, was the grginch 2005 zinfandel. they purposely designed this wine to be a sophisticated un-big zin! as a fan of big zins - and i'd probably consider big zins my favorite wines - this was nothing less than a sacrilege! to each his own, so it goes - but zins are meant to be big :D

check out the bordeaux, malbec, and riesling tasting the following week at zachy's!