A fatty that'll survive chilling
2005 Ravenswood Lodi Zinfandel, California
2005 Ravenswood Lodi Zinfandel, California (£9.49, Majestic; £9.99 or buy 3 bottles and pay £6.65 each, Thresher; £8.69, Sainsbury's).
I know what you're thinking what the hell is Matthew doing writing up a Zin in August? Well, this might seem perverse, but there is a small amount of method in my blissful madness. Even though Zinfandel is a massive, meaty monster, it is also a very good wine when it comes to matching with chargrilled, marinated and barbecue-sauced food.
The trick here is to only ever chill reds that have a load of fruit in the first place, and this wine certainly has that. Cold inhibits fruit in wine (white and red), so skinnier wines lose all of their flavour when served ice cold. Start with a fatty and you will do well.
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Joel Peterson at Ravenswood is regarded as a Zin guru and the strange thing about this wine is that despite the fact that the fruit is all sourced from the brilliant district of Lodi (i.e. it is a few steps further up that ladder than his Vintners Blend which sells at £7.99), it is only a few pence more, or indeed a few pence less, depending on where you buy it. Crazy hey? But I did say there was some method here somewhere.
Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year
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Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.
Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.
He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.
Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’. He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner.
Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.
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