I opened one of my 2001 Zins on Monday night.
Right out of the bottle it was a bit closed up. Mostly heat and oak with some black fruit showing through.
Tasting it there was black pepper, acid and alcohol with some really nice bottle bouquet and more black fruit. There was a definite sort of acrid flavor on the finish, not acid, not tannic (although there are still a decent amount of tannins present) almost a little woody like too much oak.
I poured a glass and let it sit for about 30 minutes while I made dinner (Spicy chicken italian sausages over a half-assed rice thing).
The time in the glass and the food definitely helped the wine, the heat had subsided and the fruit was much more apparent. There was good acidity and the peppery dark raspberry (not jammy sweet like blackberry, but a little deeper than just red raspberry) flavors really went well with the sausages.
I saved half the bottle in the fridge for last night and had the remainder with some good cheese Pizza (New York style, from this place near me, not as good as the real thing of course, but pretty decent in a pinch).
The second day it was quite a bit more approachable, the heat was gone and you were left with this really nice bouquet of un-namable (for me) dark fruity smells, but the acid and red/black raspberry fruit was still there and it really went well with the Pizza.
I know it's kind of Sacrilege to drink a bottle this special with pizza, but I can't argue with the results.
I'd recommend decanting this one for a bit (or at least drinking it over an hour or two to see how it progresses).
Like the 1999 and 2000 Santinamaria zins this one has the complexity and structure you'd expect from a nice Cab, but still has that Zin fruit profile. This one still has a large amount of fruit and hasn't gone through the transition that Jeff described as "becoming more like an old barolo or brunello". A transition that I liked a lot more on the '99 than the '00. I'll probably hold on to most of mine for another year or two at least, just to see how they develop, but it's certainly tasting good now, and I wouldn't wait too long if you're more into the big fruity Zins and don't like older wine.
EDIT: I just went and looked at the tasting notes on the main post for this thing:
The 2001 model delivers the same intense raspberry and dried cranberry signature as the 2000, with cherry, dark chocolate, and sweet oak tones.
I think the dried cranberry nails it, that's the flavor I couldn't place, but I would also add the sweet part of sun dried tomato, if that makes any sense, not the vegetable part, but that sour/fruity/intense part.
I tend not to taste dark chocolate in wines, perhaps that's the acrid woody oaky flavor that was so prevalent right out of the bottle.
It's also got some bottle bouquet that I mentioned above that I think is quite special and so hard to describe.
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