Hunnicut Wines - 2004 Zinfandel (California)

After a wonderfully-amazing meal at Seattle's MKT restaurant, consisting of crispy quail and greens to start, with braised lamb over pan-fried gnocchi and pork tenderloin with pepper pork lardons (I paired it with a glass of 2013 Les Michelons Cru Moulin-a-Vents gamay), my brother Dan and I headed back to the house to dip into the cellar.  Up from the depths he brought a dusty bottle - a 2004 California zinfandel by Hunnicut Wines.

 

Before we discuss the wine, let's talk about decanting. Decanting is the process of pouring out wine into a vessel, usually a fancy glass bottle, not only to serve the wine but also to aerate the wine and to remove sediment. Historically, most wines were unfiltered, and so decanting was necessary to separate all the sediment from the wine. Since today's wine is over ten years old, Dan figured we should decant to not only let the wine mix with the air but to possibly filter out any sediment that may have accumulated in the past decade. You'll notice there's a filter on the top of the decanter to help sift out anything that might be in there.

It actually decanted rather cleanly - must be a filtered wine. Another benefit of this style decanter is that there's increased surface area for the air to interact with the wine. We put down some white paper towels to see the refracted color:

It's got a rather neat garnet color - suggests to us that it'll taste like lighter fruit perhaps. When candled, the wine on the edge of the glass is an orange-brown color, which suggests old wine.

The aroma was very strong, of leather and muddled dark fruit. We let it sit for quite some time, to open up to the air.

The flavor itself is muted, with a dry texture. I can detect some fruit in there, not much (and not surprising, since the flavors have been softening for 11 years.) But on the finish and aftertaste, there's a fruit note, but not a bright one - I'm thinking blood orange here. But a wine this old, might need some time to develop. We let it sit in the decanter, covered, for over two days, and then came back to it.

It definitely opened up! It's still sweet and blood orangey, but softened up even further (not in flavor, but in texture.) It's softer, more mellow, and more approachable then when initially opened.

It was really cool to try an older wine and see how the flavors of a Zinfandel change. Dan had it back when it was new, in '04, and his recollection was that it was full and bold and peppery. Ten years certainly brought down those flavors, dulled them and mashed them all up with each other, and while it's not the best aged wine Dan or I have had, it's still a fun experiment (and a tasty glass of wine!)