This is one of those wines that if you're smart, you pick up a case or two and you present them when you want to make your lover purr and nip.  Yes, I said that, but this wine is the recipe for unleashing a tiger (don't ask me about the dragon or the phoenix).

Knowing that it is getting colder, and that conversely I need to start reviewing more red wines, this was one of the wines that I picked up and it is magnificent.    While the label says Zinfandel, you have to turn the bottle around to truly see what they put in this wine:  75% Zinfandel [which if you didn't know, is the reason that it only has to say Zinfandel on the label], 8% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Syrah, 6% Sangiovese, 4% Merlot and 2% Petit Sirah.  I don't know whose idea it was to do this, but I say 'Bravo, sir' to the winemaker.

At first taste you are overly assaulted with some seriously quenching flavors of dark plums with an unctuous undercurrent of raspberries (this reminds me of the chocolate cakes that Deb used to make which had raspberry filling between the layers).  The back end has just the slightest taste of cocoa.  Overall, this is totally consuming as the taste inverts things and swallows you hole, supplying a decadent finish that exists for a good twenty seconds or more, and it lets off so beautifully.

The color is a nice, deep, purple -- and yes, it needed the comma between deep and purple -- and the weight of this wine is just a little bit hefty.  The mouth is very smooth, but not silky. 

This has champion written all over it.