Vine Hill, Gatos Locos Zinfandel, 2006, Mokelumne River, California

This is another rad find from the folks at R. Field gourmet section of Hawaii's Foodland.  Vine Hill is a Santa Cruz based winery that went out of business sometime earlier this year.  Gatos Locos is their second label wine.  Very little information is available about the winery on the internet.  All I know is that R. Field is selling a number of their entries for at least a 50% discount.  This 2009 effort comes from the Mokelumne River AVA near the town of Lodi and I picked it up for $12 compared to the mid-twenty original cover price.  Even though this particular wine is not labeled “old vine,” farmers have been growing Zinfandel grapes in this region for the past 120 years.  The Gatos Locos has a dark opaque purple color with browning on the edges.  The nose is dominated by violets, black pepper, menthol, with an underlying milky sweetness.  Basically not much fruit on the nose.  This Zin is far from flabby but has a soft, plush Merlot-like body.  More candied grape almost big league chew flavors and plum on the profile with hits of black pepper and creamy body.  But compared to cheaper Zins, the fruit on the body avoids getting fake sweet.  Age has definitely mellowed out the tannins but the Gatos Locos does lack a bit of focus and structure.  My favorite California Zinfandels tend to have more of an overwhelming body than this while still retaining terroir-driven nuances.  Still at this price point, for a domestic Zin with this purity of fruit the Mokelumne River is hard to beat.