On Saturday night I was honored to attend a dear friend's annual birthday/wine dinner. This year's theme was 1992 wines--any country/varietal, etc. While there were some great wines including Togni, Vigil Chateau Margaritte--huge suprise, Shafer Cab, Silverado Reserve, Whitehall Lane Moriselli,Flora Springs Trilogy, Silver Oak Alexander, and while some wines were dead (easily forgettable thanks to the quantity of good wines), the highlight of the evening (and indeed a feature every year) was a vertical. This year happended to be Ridge Pagani Ranch Zin from 1991-1999. Unfortunately, the uncanny likeness of the flavors prevent me from a more detailed tasting report except to say that in the good vintages there was that classic Ridge powerful, briary ripe fruit and spice-like cinnamon and quasi nutmeg flavors that mostly come through on the tannins type zin flavors. The suprise was the vintages. I thought the 1991, 1993, 1995, 1996, and 1997 were outstanding. The 1992, 1994, 1998, and 1999 were fair to midland based on the flavor profile indicated above. Having had many years of experience with these wines, including earlier tastings of the poorer showing vintages, I am curious whether anyone else has had a similar experience with the vintages in question? I must confess that the 1994's poor showing threw me for a major loop.
Peace.
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