Clif bars don’t taste like vitamins and sawdust - you’re thinking of a power bar.
The White Climber is good for it’s price - so how many of these should I go in for is the only question…
“32% Zinfandel, 28% Syrah, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Merlot, 4% Petite Sirah”
I really do wonder how they came up with that blend. Did they just end up with several truckloads of surplus wine and were like “screw it, mix it up!”? (With apologies to Mitch Hedberg, RIP.)
I have to say I’m rather worried about imbalance here. There’s just no way all of the flavors from the different varietals could be particularly well-integrated here, especially at only four years old and a $10 price point. Specifically, I don’t think I’ve ever had a wine with both zinfandel and petite sirah in the blend, but I can’t imagine them playing nice together. They’re just two completely different grapes with different flavor and (more importantly) texture profiles. Even zin and syrah seem just too different to mix well.
But then, stranger things have happened. Someone tell me I’m wrong.
Finally! I really enjoyed the Clif White so I’ve been waiting for the Red to appear again and try this. Jammy fruit bombs are up my alley so if this describes this one, I’ll be totally happy! In for one! 
In response to all you summer shipping wooters out there holding out. My Corison from the last woot off just shipped today and this was in the text of the email.
“Don’t worry, your wine is aging nicely in a refrigerated truck meandering
across the countryside, and as soon as the carrier takes possession of it, the tracking number will show up”
Not sure if that just shows up everytime… but Woot wouldn’t lie to us right? RIGHT?
Wine Spectator gave it an 84: Juicy, spicy and user-friendly, with soft cherry and caramel flavors. Zinfandel, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petite Sirah. Drink now. 5,000 cases made. Release Price: $17.
I’ll give the Clif Family Winery my support… I’m in for one!
What, no love for Idaho on this one? …I know, it’s because PowerBars are made in Boise, right? Hey, don’t hate the State, man!
Someone expressed concern about mixing petit sirah with zin.
Orin Swift’s The Prisoner and practically all of the Ridge zins have a higher component of petit sirah than this. These are among the most well-respected zins on the market.
I found this to be a light easy drinking wine. It is a wine that you do not have to think about perfect for a summer get together. I did find it fruit forward but drunk in the right context an easy sipper.
I’m am in for a set.
Have you not had the Boss Monster? That’s an 89/11 split
Mixing PS with Zin is actually a fairly common practice. The PS adds a little extra body and oomph to the Zin. I’ve actually seen it more often done than not.
Your right and I do love the Prisoner…darn I have to pull the trigger.
Cheers!
I’m in the same boat. Argh, in for 3. The folks at the office are really starting to think I have a woot problem (between the seemingly never ending stream of wine, crap, and monkeys).
I like the price and want to buy, but I have so much wine I need to drink already. What to do?.. Oh, I guess the answer to that is simple.
What the others said–Zin and PS are natural blending partners. PS has a ton of tannin and general purplosity to lend gravitas to the Zin.
At this price point, blends are realistically the way to go. You’re just not going to find a single vineyard Cab or Zin that is properly balanced for $10. Suppose you have some Cab that’s tannic with a mid-palate hole, some Syrah with a great mid-palate but no finish, a fruity and unstructured Zin, and some face-smashing PS. Individually, none of these will hold up, but mixing them could give a complete wine.
I’m as cynical as the next guy and indeed this could just be purchased bulk wine blended up haphazardly. But good winemakers can take these disparate parts and make a nice balanced quaffer on a budget.
A Florida winewooter here. I’ve seen a number of comments/concerns like this about shipping wine to the hot states in the summer. I’ve never thought about that and have received a number of mid-summer shipments in the past. I’ve not had any problems, although admittedly, I’m not the most expert of winesippers. Is this really a significant concern? Don’t the boxes sit in the street delivery trucks for a couple/few hours (our UPS delivery is around 11 am)? Is that enough to affect a good wine?
This is from the winemaker -
The majority of the fruit for the 2006 Climber Red comes from Somerston Vineyard, located 10 miles east of the Silverado Trail in the Napa Valley. Somerston Vineyard is planted between 1000 and 2500 feet elevations, creating a cool micro-climate with ideal growing conditions. The wine was aged in a mix of used and new oak barrels for 18 months.
Blend: 32% Zinfandel, 28% Syrah, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Merlot, 4% Petite Sirah
I thought I’d be able to take a break, but I checked woot this morning, and this is here. I already have 2 pending shipments and I’m out of room in my wine fridge as well! D= oh well… the sacrifices we make… =p click
We had the 2004 Clif Climber and it was great. I can’t wait to enjoy the 2006.
Bulk wines on the wholesale market could be either single varietal, field blends, or actual blends (whether careful or haphazard). I would be most of this was bought in as varietal wine or field blends, and blended to specifications. Since Climber has a style it aspires to, I think she probably looks for fruit components that will end up with what she wants.
Petite Sirah was always a blending grape before the mid-1960s and 1970s, and mostly even then. It was often used to give backbone (tannin) to zinfandel/carignane blends and to give color to any blend that needed it. It was often a mainstay of the better quality generic “burgundy” in California, especially balancing out Zinfandel’s great fruitiness, darkening and adding body to carignane and grenache blends.
Souverain in Napa and Concannon in Livermore were among the pioneers in varietal bottling Petite Sirah in the mid-1960s. I think I still have a bottle of the 1974 Concannon tucked away somewhere. I was never as fond of the Souverain as the Concannon, which I thought aged better. Freemark Abby in Napa made some interesting PS in 1969, but it was never available other than ‘at the door’.
Ridge used to get a fair amount of PS from the York Creek vineyard, some of which went into their York Creek Cabernet Sauvignon, some of which went into several of their Zinfandels, and some of which was bottled as Petite Sirah (but which other stuff in it) - the 1978 and 1979 Ridge York Creek PS were memorable and still near peak when I last had them 10-12 years ago.
I live in Atlanta. Its 90 degrees here today. I buy wine all the time, but I rarely buy and make arrangements for shipping between May and late Sept.
The problem is that the wine is shipped “ground.” These are not air-conditioned trucks they ship the wine in. If the wine is being drop-shipped from the west coast, that means it probably goes on a truck that bounces along I-10 – right through the desert. The back of an un-air-conditioned truck can easily get 120 degrees if the air temperature is 90 degrees.
If that was only for a couple of hours, you’d probably be okay – think of it as a wine-shipping pasteurization. But odds are ground shipping brings this wine up into the 90+ degree range for hours or even days. That’ll cook the wine and instead of delicate fruits, you get cooked grape stew. Any damage done might not be noticeable until the wine had aged a few years – not an issue on these “right now” drinkers. Of course if it cooks in transit, it might be plonky from the start.
Of course at this price, you can always roll the dice and tell us what you learn.