The Good Life: Zin can take whatever you dish out

This is a big weekend, a huge weekend, a super weekend, if you will, for our little friend the zinfandel grape.

Here's one reason why: If you're going to be at some kind of Super Bowl party, you'll probably be eating, uh, not well. There will be chips and dips (not the guests) and wings and barbecue and tacos and chili and tamale pie and tiny pizzas and fried things and piles and piles of bites with salt.

There's probably no day, not Thanksgiving or Christmas, not Halloween or the Fourth of July, when Americans for a steady period eat more things that, to put it mildly, do not qualify as healthy.

And you know what wine goes with all of that? A big red zinfandel.

"Of all the different types of food – and the stuff that's close to food – that you're going to consume Sunday," said Rod Farley, owner of Beyond Napa Wine Merchants on Fair Oaks Boulevard, "there is nothing better to go with it than zinfandel. It fits well with so many things, with salt, with fat, with grilled meats, with everything. Plus there's the stomach acid you're going to have if your team loses, and zin is big and soft and won't make it worse."

Sure there's beer. I love beer. Sunday is a huge day for beer, too. Start with a beer. (Check out some recommendations from Chris Macias in Liquid Assets today.) But it's a long day, tastes will change, and there will come a time when zinfandel can answer the call.

"You have to warm up," said Jeff Meyer, the vice president and general manager of Terra d'Oro Winery in Amador Country. "That's the beauty of zin, there's a whole range of styles. There are lighter zins, there's more fruity, there's spicy or peppery, there's the big monster with higher extraction, and there's even port.

"So you start light and move up and you'll be ready for kickoff. Though not with the port. You probably need to hold off on the port till the fourth quarter."

But that's not the only thing going on this weekend for our hero, zinfandel – and it's a local hero at that, which we'll get to in a minute. There is also ZAP in San Francisco, a unique and sometimes wild event that's like the Super Bowl of wine tastings.

'It's hysteria'

Officially, it's called the Zinfandel Advocates & Producer's Zinfandel Festival, and it runs four days. The biggest public event is at Fort Mason on Saturday, where 250-plus wineries will pour more than 700 wines – all of them zinfandel – for 10,000 people.

"It's hysteria," Meyer said. "It's amazing. You have these two gigantic halls filled with people and hundreds and hundreds of zinfandels, just zinfandels. It's not duplicated anywhere else in the world."

There are more sedate doings at ZAP, including a Thursday evening "Good Eats" event where 50 wineries team with 50 restaurants for a food-and-wine pairing open to the public. But it's Saturday's Grand Zinfandel Tasting that is the internationally famous affair.

And the Grand Tasting is as much like a Harley-Davidson rally as it is a wine tasting, because it's for fans as well as pros, and there's an enthusiastic fervor running through the place.

"We have this really diverse crowd," said Bruce Walker, a founder of Starry Night winery in Novato and the president of the ZAP board. "All the zinfandel fans turn out, not just from the United States, but there are lots of foreign visitors, too.

"You get red hand, red lips, red tongues. And there's wine to try everywhere you look. It's really fun. The zinfandel crowd, while we take the wine seriously, we don't take ourselves seriously. I've been to a lot of rock concerts when I was young; it's a little like that."

More information is available at www.zinfandel.org and (530) 274-4900. Even better, the Bee's wine Web site, sacwineregion.com, is giving away five pairs of tickets. Details are at the end of this column.

Zin hits for the home team

And there's a cool part to all this that fits Super Bowl weekend. We may not have a Northern California team in the game, but if there's one varietal that is the home grape for this region, it is, of course, zinfandel.

The little purple fellow is an enthusiastic grower, though a bit thin-skinned – who isn't these days? – and it needs warm but not crazy hot weather. That's why wineries in the foothills and in the Lodi area make so much zin. The areas are great for it.

And though its origins are probably Croatian, zinfandel's roots are now firmly dug into the region and into California's wine psyche.

"Zinfandel is definitely identified with this area," Meyer said. "Nowhere else grows it like this region and like California. That's another reason ZAP is a major- league event for us around here. It's a big deal for locals, for the foothills, Napa, Sonoma and San Francisco, but it's also international."

Farley will be going to ZAP, and then drinking zinfandel on Sunday.

"Being a Sacramento native, zin has always been my favorite wine," he said. "It fits us. It's not hoity-toity, it's not an L.A. wine, and it's hard for it to be offensive. That's us in Sacramento."

It might fit the region for another reason at the moment, which Walker said, is also a reason it's good for Super Bowl parties: Hosts can afford it.

"If you're throwing a party, you're going to have a lot of people there for a long time. Who can afford to be serving all those expensive cabs?" he said. "Zin is one of the wines where you can get really good quality at a good price."

But I say zinfandel's heroics on Sunday go back to how many things it matches up with.

"You're going to be eating crappy food all day long," Meyer said. "Zin pairs really well with crappy food. Now, just hope it'll be a good game."

Drawing for free tickets

And here's the deal on our ZAP Grand Tasting tickets. It's a simple random drawing, and five winners will get a pair of tickets to the event on Saturday at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center. Advance tickets are $59 and they're $69 at the door.

To enter, just go to sacwineregion.com. You have until noon on Thursday.

The Good Life: Zin can take whatever you dish out
Published: Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2009 | Page 7D
This is a big weekend, a huge weekend, a super weekend, if you will, for our little friend the zinfandel grape.

Here's one reason why: If you're going to be at some kind of Super Bowl party, you'll probably be eating, uh, not well. There will be chips and dips (not the guests) and wings and barbecue and tacos and chili and tamale pie and tiny pizzas and fried things and piles and piles of bites with salt.

There's probably no day, not Thanksgiving or Christmas, not Halloween or the Fourth of July, when Americans for a steady period eat more things that, to put it mildly, do not qualify as healthy.

And you know what wine goes with all of that? A big red zinfandel.

"Of all the different types of food – and the stuff that's close to food – that you're going to consume Sunday," said Rod Farley, owner of Beyond Napa Wine Merchants on Fair Oaks Boulevard, "there is nothing better to go with it than zinfandel. It fits well with so many things, with salt, with fat, with grilled meats, with everything. Plus there's the stomach acid you're going to have if your team loses, and zin is big and soft and won't make it worse."

Sure there's beer. I love beer. Sunday is a huge day for beer, too. Start with a beer. (Check out some recommendations from Chris Macias in Liquid Assets today.) But it's a long day, tastes will change, and there will come a time when zinfandel can answer the call.

"You have to warm up," said Jeff Meyer, the vice president and general manager of Terra d'Oro Winery in Amador Country. "That's the beauty of zin, there's a whole range of styles. There are lighter zins, there's more fruity, there's spicy or peppery, there's the big monster with higher extraction, and there's even port.

"So you start light and move up and you'll be ready for kickoff. Though not with the port. You probably need to hold off on the port till the fourth quarter."

But that's not the only thing going on this weekend for our hero, zinfandel – and it's a local hero at that, which we'll get to in a minute. There is also ZAP in San Francisco, a unique and sometimes wild event that's like the Super Bowl of wine tastings.

'It's hysteria'

Officially, it's called the Zinfandel Advocates & Producer's Zinfandel Festival, and it runs four days. The biggest public event is at Fort Mason on Saturday, where 250-plus wineries will pour more than 700 wines – all of them zinfandel – for 10,000 people.

"It's hysteria," Meyer said. "It's amazing. You have these two gigantic halls filled with people and hundreds and hundreds of zinfandels, just zinfandels. It's not duplicated anywhere else in the world."

There are more sedate doings at ZAP, including a Thursday evening "Good Eats" event where 50 wineries team with 50 restaurants for a food-and-wine pairing open to the public. But it's Saturday's Grand Zinfandel Tasting that is the internationally famous affair.

And the Grand Tasting is as much like a Harley-Davidson rally as it is a wine tasting, because it's for fans as well as pros, and there's an enthusiastic fervor running through the place.

"We have this really diverse crowd," said Bruce Walker, a founder of Starry Night winery in Novato and the president of the ZAP board. "All the zinfandel fans turn out, not just from the United States, but there are lots of foreign visitors, too.

"You get red hand, red lips, red tongues. And there's wine to try everywhere you look. It's really fun. The zinfandel crowd, while we take the wine seriously, we don't take ourselves seriously. I've been to a lot of rock concerts when I was young; it's a little like that."

More information is available at www.zinfandel.org and (530) 274-4900. Even better, the Bee's wine Web site, sacwineregion.com, is giving away five pairs of tickets. Details are at the end of this column.

Zin hits for the home team

And there's a cool part to all this that fits Super Bowl weekend. We may not have a Northern California team in the game, but if there's one varietal that is the home grape for this region, it is, of course, zinfandel.

The little purple fellow is an enthusiastic grower, though a bit thin-skinned – who isn't these days? – and it needs warm but not crazy hot weather. That's why wineries in the foothills and in the Lodi area make so much zin. The areas are great for it.

And though its origins are probably Croatian, zinfandel's roots are now firmly dug into the region and into California's wine psyche.

"Zinfandel is definitely identified with this area," Meyer said. "Nowhere else grows it like this region and like California. That's another reason ZAP is a major- league event for us around here. It's a big deal for locals, for the foothills, Napa, Sonoma and San Francisco, but it's also international."

Farley will be going to ZAP, and then drinking zinfandel on Sunday.

"Being a Sacramento native, zin has always been my favorite wine," he said. "It fits us. It's not hoity-toity, it's not an L.A. wine, and it's hard for it to be offensive. That's us in Sacramento."

It might fit the region for another reason at the moment, which Walker said, is also a reason it's good for Super Bowl parties: Hosts can afford it.

"If you're throwing a party, you're going to have a lot of people there for a long time. Who can afford to be serving all those expensive cabs?" he said. "Zin is one of the wines where you can get really good quality at a good price."

But I say zinfandel's heroics on Sunday go back to how many things it matches up with.

"You're going to be eating crappy food all day long," Meyer said. "Zin pairs really well with crappy food. Now, just hope it'll be a good game."

Drawing for free tickets

And here's the deal on our ZAP Grand Tasting tickets. It's a simple random drawing, and five winners will get a pair of tickets to the event on Saturday at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center. Advance tickets are $59 and they're $69 at the door.