Smelling the 2004 Zinfandel Dickerson Vineyard, which always possesses a eucalyptus character, is like putting your nose in a kosher deli’s pickle barrel. The minty, green, pickly bouquet is accompanied by a bizarre, idiosyncratic, simple wine with little depth or richness. It may turn out to be barely above average once bottled. One of my favorite songs is called “Poker Face” by a relatively unknown country crooner named Rob Jungklas. One of the lines in that great song sums up how I’m feeling about Ravenswood these days ... “You don’t have to meet the devil to lose your soul on this black night.” Ravenswood along with Ridge and a handful of other wineries were the reference points for stunning Zinfandel during the decade of the 1980s, but since the winery’s sale, these wines are mere shadows of what they were a decade ago (despite the fact that Joel Peterson is still in charge). While some of the current cuvees merited respectable scores, the soul and guts of Ravenswood Zinfandels are missing. Tel. (707) 938-1960

Smelling the 2004 Zinfandel Dickerson Vineyard, which always possesses a eucalyptus character, is like putting your nose in a kosher deli’s pickle barrel. The minty, green, pickly bouquet is accompanied by a bizarre, idiosyncratic, simple wine with little depth or richness. It may turn out to be barely above average once bottled. One of my favorite songs is called “Poker Face” by a relatively unknown country crooner named Rob Jungklas. One of the lines in that great song sums up how I’m feeling about Ravenswood these days ... “You don’t have to meet the devil to lose your soul on this black night.” Ravenswood along with Ridge and a handful of other wineries were the reference points for stunning Zinfandel during the decade of the 1980s, but since the winery’s sale, these wines are mere shadows of what they were a decade ago (despite the fact that Joel Peterson is still in charge). While some of the current cuvees merited respectable scores, the soul and guts of Ravenswood Zinfandels are missing.Tel. (707) 938-1960