Bushwood Estate Old Vine Zinfandel (6)

Bushwood Estate Old Vine Zinfandel 6-Pack
Sold by: AH Wines (H-G Vineyards)
$59.99 $126.00 52% off List Price
2014 Bushwood Estate Old Vine Zinfandel, Lodi, California

[grape]

Last Wooter to Woot:
Corrado

Whoa! Blast from the past! Did WineDavid get those Golden Tickets printed in bulk? I swear that’s it’s the same one as “Back In The Day ™.”

For science, I had kmeyersvt swing over tonight to get our rat on and sample today’s wine. Writing this before launch-time, we were a little all-over-the-map in term of “guess the sale price.” I came in at $10/bottle, but guesses ran up toward $15/bottle with one initial impression of $20+. I’m the only one who took actual notes.

Bushwood Estate 2014 Lodi Old Vine Zinfandel, consumed over the course of a 90 minutes.

For those new (i.e. within the last 6-7 years) to wine.woot, my reviews almost always trend toward critical.

Appearance (5/5): Garnet in color, clarity is (as expected) excellent. Overall within the expected style for a Zinfandel. Dark in color, but not opaque.

Aroma (11/15): HUGE promise in the glass at pop & pour. Leather, pipe tobacco, black raspberry right up front. With a good cover, swirl, and sniff, there was sweet volatile alcohol aroma that cropped up. The closest thing I could hit was acetone. Everyone noticed it eventually, but no one could describe it any better. It wasn’t obvious or off-putting, but it was unusual enough to warrant mentioning and became a little easier to detect as the aromas blew off and wine warmed to room temp from about 60F.

Flavor (7/10: Immediate impression on entry was like something from Seghesio or Ridge. Extremely mouth-filling, carrying the dominant aroma flavors to the palate. Through the mid-palate, it still feels like a big wine, but lacks and significant tannin or structure to really hold together and carry itself through to the finish.

Finish (5/10): We all had the same, “Where did it go?” feeling with regard to the finish. After several more sips to try to get a better bead on it, I was still mostly left with a slightly cloying sweetness and little else. With a promising lead up, the finish was fairly disappointing.

Potential (3/10): Criminy, hard to tell what this is going to do. Nothing about it says, “NOT READY TO DRINK NOW.” Give it a year and I suspect the weird nose I picked up will be metabolized and gone. This also doesn’t drink like a wine that’s going to improve with time in the cellar and might be downright weird in 4-5 years.

Conversationally speaking, this is a wine I’d gladly pick up for $10 at the store to come home to have with BBQ take-out (or Taco Tuesday) or to have a few bottles on hand for parties as a great, casual kick-starter for the night. Overall, I would put it a slight leg up over Gnarled Head’s Old Vine Zin. A little more oomph on the mid-palate and a note-worthy finish would catapult this way up the charts for me. I’m a little surprised with the 81/100 score on the Parker scale, but that’s where it settles out for me. The little differences for aroma, flavor, and finish could easily push this to an 86 point wine, so it’s close, but not quite there.

[grape]
Sorry to be late to the party, and even sorrier that I have nothing good to add.

We had a huge storm earlier this week and at some point when looking at the flooding throughout campus I said, “Noah! Start loading the animals!” Apparently there was a monkey nearby that heard me and as he could not find a mate to bring (monkeys are rare in Florida), he brought a bottle of Bushwood Estate 2014 Lodi Old Vine Zinfandel instead.

We planned to taste with some homemade meatballs and “gravy” with spaghetti.

Upon opening, I took a sniff. I made that “ew” face. Very skunky. Swirled a bit, still skunky. Initial taste was no better. I think my husband put it best, “It tastes the way a teenage boy’s room smells.” We tried it again with the spaghetti, no better. I’m afraid we got a bad bottle.

Disappointed, we opened a Wellington '09 Estate Zin and all was right with the world.

Sounds like you got the better bottle.

I forgot to mention that the cork on my rat bottle had the Rock Lobster logo on it. Did your bottle have that?

According to Vivino the average price of 2014 is $5.99 a bottle…other vintages are +/- $1. Not sure why it’s so expensive on Woot.

Usually it’s the “shipping is included” that makes the difference. :slight_smile:

Bushwood is often available at the local Grocery Outlet (GrossOut) for $5.99. I’ve never tried it.

They are usually less $ on here than in the store with shipping included.

I’ve seen it there too!
2 sales in a row with this issue. Looks like WW is getting some of these cheaper wines from the same source as Grocery Outlet. Kinda kills the “deal” if you live anywhere near one.

Thanks for the notes master debaters!

Hmmm on the fence with this Bushwood wonder if Judge Smails or Bishop Pickering might chime in.

I couldn’t find this wine anywhere else on the internet. The Vivino wine I found was a different vintage (2013) and different AVA (Sierra Foothills). Considering this doesn’t seem to be a “winery” as much as a “production” product, the variation and price & character wouldn’t surprise me.

Granted, I live almost as far from Wine Country as you can get, but even at our local Trader Joes, I can’t find a wine with this much varietal character for $6. It is absolutely, without a doubt, an Old Vine Zin. Ones I’ve tried at lower price points are relatively indistinguishable from the producer’s Merlot, Syrah, or Cabernet.

It’s a good $10 wine. Exactly what I would expect from wine.woot. I mean, it’s no Critter Quartet, but c’mon, lightning doesn’t strike, ya know!

EDIT: Second order placed for my mom (who’s a little scared of woot).

WD, how about a Clue ?

Ages since even TT provided one of those.

Kind of it kills it no matter where you live I would think. Can’t think of any $6 dollar wine that I need to have so bad that I would pay $10 for it. Umm…not exactly like there isn’t a plethora of 6 buck wine around. This seems like kind of a not so good deal.

WD is having technical issues but sends the following note:

Genghis Kahn in Washington?

Curious. Do you recall what your cork looked like? Mine had “Rock Lobster” on it.

The first bottle I just opened from the half-case I bought had some generic flowers. The wine in the bottle IS NOT the same wine I tasted a few weeks ago and reviewed. I gave it to my wife blind (who also tasted for the review, above) and she made a face and didn’t care for it either.

If this truly is the “same wine” (versus some bottling/labeling screw-up at the plant), there is a TON of bottle-to-bottle variation. I’d be VERY interested to see tasting notes that also not the design on the cork to see if there’s some thread of similarity between the closures.

http://rocklobstervineyards.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/rock-lobster-wine-lodi.jpg

…another AH Wines product