Hi, everyone. Welcome to Le Gourmet TV today we are learning about Zinfandel, an amazing grape wine and Kevin here is going to tell us a little bit about what Zinfandel actually is, and the difference between white Zinfandel and a red Zinfandel.
Ange: Hi Kevin, welcome.
Kevin: Hi, thanks for having me.
Ange: So, this is really exciting. I'm really excited to shoot this episode because a lot of our audiences really know difference between—they have association with Zinfandel, as being a very sweet pink wine.
Kevin: Yes.
Ange: And they might not know that the Zinfandel grape can create a really full bodied bread wine.
Kevin: Absolutely.
Ange: And we’re doing a little bit of tasting here which is always my favorite part.
Kevin: Which is the always the best for you but definitely two sides is enough to share. Zinfandel is actually a grape that originated actually in Croatia. It became popular in California when people or sellers will bring it over from New York and the bus line in New York brought it over to California during the gold rush and Zinfandel became known as California’s grape.
Ange: That’s a good point because there’s a lot of Zinfandel coming from California.
Kevin: Absolutely yes, and so the difference usually back when Zinfandel was first planted it was always a dark red grape because when you talk about making wine the color of a wine all comes from the skins not the grape itself.
Ange: Right.
Kevin: The juice in a grape whether it’s a red grape or white grape is clear unless the color will be from fermenting the wine on the skins. So it has two different colors. There’s a white Zinfandel, the wine has only got through half of fermentation, so maybe 24 to 36 hours then they stop the fermentation there. So, what you’re doing in fermentation you’re converting sugar into alcohol, so when you stop the fermentation half way through less alcohol more sugar and so white Zinfandel.
Ange: Right.
Kevin: In this one here, it has been fermented all the way through 5 to 6 days, so hence, it you have more alcohol 14% in this wine yet it’s very dry.
Ange: So here we have the same grape, just different fermentation processes and then different colors.
Kevin: Yes.
Ange: So, maybe we should try though this. Also, you did note the alcohol level which is a great thing, so as we’re trying to taste the white Zinfandel we can talk about obviously the lower alcohol and a little bit higher in sugar.
Kevin: Absolutely.
Ange: So that’s what we should be expecting as we go through the tasting, right?
Kevin: Yes.
Ange: So obviously we’ve got some really nice pink color here. I mean if you’re looking at Zinfandel as a whole, what’s the category? What’s the price range of this category, fairly affordable?
Kevin: This one here is the Gallo family white Zinfandel. It’s $9, it’s a great value, so what you’re getting here is you’re getting a light, very refreshing crystal wine. There’s some sweetness to it, so it’s easy everyday drinking wine, however, it does go with food quite well as was especially for having spicy food because that sweetness. What’s it can do is going to caught the tongue in the mouth it’s going to cool down the mouth, and just now the sweet food comes in and everything now comes in balance, so the wine taste a little bit less sweet. The food taste a little bit less spicy and you got this wonderful balance. This is really a nice blend to the food and wine.
Ange: You’re making me hungry. That’s a really great point the food component of wine is a really interesting part of really what brings out the best part of the wine and the food, and then gives you that complexity in the mouth, and lucky we’ll assume that you can drink white Zinfandel but you wouldn’t necessary match it with food, but it is very food friendly. I can tell obviously red Zinfandel just smells to me like a little bit of strawberries and some nice cherries, and you definitely get that red berry and a little sweet notice.
Kevin: No.
Ange: It’s not really delicious.
Kevin: Also some wonderful water melon.
Ange: Yes, you’re right.
Kevin: It’s nine dollars of alcohol.
Ange: Nine percent alcohol, nine dollars a bottle.
Kevin: Yes, exactly.
Ange: If you remember anything, that’s what you should remember. Alright, so we’ve tried the white Zinfandel. I still love this, the nose won’t matter. It’s just gorgeous I love smelling it. So moving on to our nice full bodied Zinfandel we’ve got the dancing ball here. We almost got some really deep red colors and this is a full bodied red wine you can tell just from the legs.
Kevin: Yes.
Ange: And what’s the percentage of alcohol in this?
Kevin: This one will be 14% because the fermentation process is not all the way through so to dry wine here you’ll getting like some dark fruit where here you’ll got that strawberry, raspberry, water melon style. Here, you’re more blackberries. You’ll get some cherry in there. I’ll find you get even a little of raspberry but wonderful blue berry notes as well.
Ange: Yes.
Kevin: So when we have a dark fruit you’ll get all kinds of fruit. You’ll get a dark fruit, the red fruit in raspberry, blue fruit in a blue berry and so it’s kind of like ménage of different styles of grapes and that’s what I love about Zinfandel. You just get a little bit of everything in the glass.
Ange: I love the blue berry in common I’ve got a lot of blue berry actually the power of influence.
Kevin: At this one here like you said if you take a little sip of it right now it has some weight in the mouth, so you could match it up with some nice food like you can match it with a hardy dish whether it’s a pasta sauce, a nice meat with its darker even a steak go with it, and on the same side you can match it with a lighter stuff like Christmas Turkey dinner. Well, wonderful with it, it’s lighter so the red itself even though its more full body it’s still nice and round and soften the mouth which will make it go well with the turkey.
Ange: And a great thing to know about Zinfandel is potentially you can decant them, open them up and make them nice in that taste. How much is this bottle of again?
Kevin: This would be $11.99.
Female: $12 bottle taste like it’s $25, right?
Kevin: Absolutely yes, because we’re in the counter we’re just going to open up the fruit. The intensity is going to come out. The aroma is going to come out and its just going to really change the wine a lot in your mouth, and really like you said make a $12 wine taste more like a $15 or $16 wine.
Female: That’s great, I think I learned a lot about Zinfandel, so thanks for taking the time and tasting some Zinfandel with us.
Kevin: Welcome my pleasure. Cheers.
Female: Cheers, thanks Kevin.
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