Tonight's dinner was a throwback to the earliest days of our relationship, when Jean and I would get Indian food delivered (ah, Manhattan living...) and open a bottle of aged Zinfandel from the stash that I'd drug cross-country to grad school. We discovered the joys of Zin with lamb Vindaloo as well as each other's company (ah, alcohol, but that's another story...) and the rest is history.
History repeated itself tonight with a dinner of takeout lamb Vindaloo, channa masala and onion kulcha with a bottle of "Zin" from the cellar:
2001 Ridge Lytton Springs nose: cedar, brambly blackcerry fruit, tarry palate: rich, full bodied, smooth, acidicWe first looked in on this wine in '07, finding it quite oaky at that time and benefitting from lots of air. Tonight, the oak had completely receded, now noticeable only in the texture of the wine. The pairing with the lamb Vindaloo wasn't as good as our earlier experiences (changing tastes? different preparation? different wine? all things are possible) but it was still a decent match and well well enough with the other dishes, too. As usual, Paul Draper's notes on the back label are spot on: best from 2007-2012, he says. We'll hang on to our remaining two bottles to see where this wine heads to. I'm sure that it will last longer than Paul Draper conservatively suggests, so let's see what that amounts to.
Markk Lipton