Four Vines Winery

Bright, saturated, ruby, and viscous, this wine has upfront notes of cherry, cassis, raspberry, vanilla, and caramel, and is slightly hot, as one might expect from Paso Robles with a listed alcohol of 15 percent. Rich and round on the palate, this pleasure-bomb wine has notes of framboise, vanilla bean, and chocolate decadence. The oak is well-integrated, and the wine is well balanced with the exception of slightly drying tannins on the finish. Enjoy as a cocktail, with Acai-marinated grilled “chicken-style” seitan, or, for meat-lovers, with your first summertime BBQ of peppered flank steak with a Biker Zin glaze.

Winemaker Christian Tietje, his partner Susan Mahler, and Christian’s childhood buddy, Bill Grant, have plans to triple this winery’s current production, which focuses on high quality, site-driven Zins. While Chardonnay and Rhone blends are also produced, Tietje’s mastery of Zinfandel is exquisitely expressed release after release. He makes crowd pleasers in the full-blown, in-your-face style, but the individual wines manage, with his minimal handling, to express terroir, that elusive sense of place so hard to capture with such warm origin, ripe fruit.

Reviewed August 10, 2007 by Catherine Fallis.