I meant to write about this wine earlier in the week, but really didn't have the opportunity until now. Last weekend my husband and I had a bottle of the 2005 Tom Feeney Ranch Russian River Valley, Old Vine Zinfandel. The 2004 was excellent, and we were so excited to try the '05. What a delicious wine! And it's just a baby. This bottle could sit for a couple of years and really develop and improve. This wine has delicious flavors of cherry, raspberry, and cassis. There's a little anise back there as well, but it's just about noticeable.

The stats:

COMPOSITION
31% Piner Road Vineyard Zinfandel
17.2% Montafi Vineyard Zinfandel
13.8% Barbieri Vineyard Zinfandel
38%Papera Vineyard Zinfandel

COOPERAGE
Barrel Aged over 20 months - 45% new American oak barrels, 25% new French barrels
30% select one to three year old American and French oak barrels

Now, according to the Web site, this wine clocks in at 16.2% alcohol. The label on the bottle we drank stated it was 15.6% which sounds more reasonable. Now before you cover your mouth and gasp at the alcohol content, let me just say how surprised I was because I didn't look at the alcohol until after I tasted it. It's so well integrated that I found it hard to believe.

All of those high-alcohol naysayers will be missing out on this wine, and that's actually OK because it means more for the rest of us (only 1,200 cases were produced).