Hendry Wines Estate Red - 3 Pack

Hendry Wines Estate Red - 3 Pack
$59.99 + $5 shipping
CONDITION: Red
PRODUCTS:
1 2007 Hendry Block 24 Primitivo
1 2007 HRW Cabernet Sauvignon
1 2006 Hendry Red Wine
CT links above

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Very good price (CT avg $ = 80+) for some unique wines from a winery I’m not familiar with… I’m interested in reading some of the comments from those who have sampled these wines before.

Some info on the 2006 Hendry Red Wine here

42% Malbec · 26% Petit Verdot · 21% Cabernet Sauvignon · 7% Merlot · 4% Cabernet Franc

For those who don’t know, Primitivo is the original, Italian name for Zinfandel!

According to their info, the Primitivo-labelled one is more fruit-forward than their Zins.

That’s the strangest Bordeaux blend I’ve ever seen, but I love the thinking behind it! Been waiting for someone to do something like this. It’s just about backwards, but I can see it working. I dub the blend “Teralc”.

It’d be interesting to know how it ages. It has the tannins, but does it have enough acid to age well without falling apart? pH and TA stats?

I’ve had the straight-up Hendry Zinfandel, 2006, “Block 6 & 22”, which is a great, classic zin - brickish color, nose = jam & quince, and taste = dark fruit, cherry, cloves, with a dry finish.

Not that these are that. But for $20, this is a good price on a quality producer, from my opinion.

But that’s just my two cents :slight_smile:

Several years ago, I had the pleasure of a visiting Hendry with several wine wooters. I had never heard of the vineayard, but my wooting friends had recently had a conversation with a sommelier who, in response to their inquiry as to his personal cellar, responded that he was currently pouring Hendry zinfandel for himself.

Interest thus kindled, we made an appointment, and the vineyard tour and tasting we received from George Hendry remains one of the most educational wine lessons my palate has ever experienced.

To say that the winemaker is meticulous is an understatement; If memory serves, in his other life he’s a particle physicist. Before Hendry started it’s own label, it’s grapes contributed to the making of Opus One and Mondavi Reserve offerings.

Each wine we tasted was well-made and I liked everything, including the rose. I could easily have filled a mixed case of white, rose and reds, but shipping wine across the country to Virginia is cost prohibitive. So I came away with the Block 7 & Block 22 Zin and the Block 28 Zin. And sent a Block 28 Zin and a Primitivo to my parents as a gift. Another of our party who lived a bit closer to home came away with a case…of magnums.

I wish I could recall my tasting notes for the particular wines included here, but I cannot. But one thing I remember with absolute clarity: the Primitivo paired beautifully with dark chocolate.

Needless to say, I’m in for today’s offering. Thank you, Wine David, for seeking out these smaller, quality producers. My palate is the better for it.

The blends are certainly unique, don’t think I have seen one like the Red Blend before. Am I seeing correctly that the Primitivo and the Blend have corks, but the the Cab has a Stelvin closure? I would like to know the thinking (and results from the Winery) on that.

Edit: Bueller?/crickets/Bueller?/crickets

My last name is “Henry.” Very close. If that’s not a good reason to get one, what is!?

This blend would have been more at home in Bordeaux before the mid-late 1950’s. I think it was 1956 (late frost) when most of the Malbec in that region was torn out and replanted with varietals that were becoming more popular and perhaps less suseptable to frost and sickness.

At any rate, I’ve had the pleasure of sampling a few of Hendry’s wines in the last 5 years and I’ve always been pleased…sometimes impressed. Mostly his Zinfandel and even an example of his Pinot Noir once. Never a dull bottle. Not sure why they went with the “Primitivo” instead of Zinfandel…perhaps just to be different?

This is a very nice price, especially because the HRW Cab can be hard to come by and Hendry in general is more of a high end or boutique wine shop type of wine.

The HRW Cab is one of the very few bottles of wine that I will order by the case when it comes out. HRW is almost like Hendry’s “off label”. While their top end stuff is meticulously made from specific plots where yes, you can tell the little differences if you have a halfway decent palate, the HRW is a blend from throughout the vineyard of what didn’t make it. While the Hendry Cab’s frequently go for $35 on up if memory serves, the HRW is closer to $25. For the buck, it’s easily one of my favorite cabs.

We had the Primativo at a Hendry wine dinner as a dessert wine, and it was quite impressive. Not what one would normally think of serving with dessert (and I can’t remember what we ate at the time), but it worked extremely well with the fruitiness of the wine nicely merging with the dessert.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had the Hendry red blend, but the little I recall of it was impressive as well as being a fairly rare blend that actually uses all 5 Bordeaux varietals.

In for 3 only because I can’t order more than that.

What we grow in Block 24 is clone 3 Primitivo. Technically speaking, we could call it zinfandel, but calling it primitivo helps distinguish it from the other zins we bottle. It has its own and distinct taste.

That red blend looks very interesting. It sounds like a rich, complex, heavy duty tannic monster, which is right up my alley. These three are $92 on the winery website (without shipping, of course) so it’s a pretty great discount.

Mike,

What is the drinking window for each?

The 2006 Red blend has a pH of 3.76 and a TA of of 6 g/L. It should age very well. The first year we made a blend of this type was 2001. That wine still has plenty of life in it.

The Red and the HRW cab will drink well for at least 10 years and possibly longer. I would recommend drinking the primitivo in the next 3 or 4. However… zinfandels and primitivo can sometimes age well for a very long time.

Yes, you are seeing that correctly. We believe in stelvin closures, and in the future I would like to use more of them. Our HRW Cabernet is a value priced, quality cabernet, and using a stelvin closure over a cork saves almost 80 cents a bottle on the production side.

Mike,

Thank you for joining the thread! Your explanation on the Primitivo is good to know and, frankly, makes sense.

For those wanting a little more info about Hendry and some pairings, check out Amusee wine’s writeup and video on a wine dinner with Susan Ridley from Hendry.

Mike, how’s Susan and her retirement doing? She was amazing that night and at the tasting we went to a few days before it.