9 for $9 Zinfandel Showdown

DROdio -

Tonight we did a showdown of 9 zinfandel wines under $9.  The winner? 7 Deadly Zins.  This is a super fun thing do to at a party -- just have everyone bring a wine of a certain type.  We used white slips of paper to have everyone rate the wine on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) and then tallied up the points.   It wasn't a ranking per-se, as each wine could score 10 points if you wanted it to (less pressure that way).

It was also interesting to see how some people consistently had opposing tastes.

Wine truly is an individual experience -- I live by the quote "Which wine is best?  The one you like the most."  A low-pressure approach like this makes it fun.

Here's the scoring & point totals of the wines we tried (all were Zinfandels):

  • 7 Deadly Zins (61.5 points -- winner)
  • Running With Scissors, 2008 Paso Robles, CA  (57.5 points & my personal favorite)
  • Bogle (47.5 points)
  • Sobon Estate, 2009 California (47 points)
  • Beringer, California (44.5 points)
  • Barefoot, California (41 points)
  • Buffalo Grove, California (39.5 points)
  • Canyon Oaks, California (36 points)

(Note this wasn't on the traditional 100 point scale - just a summation of all the points garnered by our group of tasters on a scale of 1 to 10)