A Great Cheap Bastard Zin

Barefoot Zinfandel
Lodi, California | Barefoot Wines.
W ow. I’ve never reviewed a Barefoot wine before. I know I’ve brought some home* since they are often way below $10. Maybe they were too terrible to review. This wine, I’m quite surprised, is very much worthy of review. It’s on sale at Publix at 2 for $11, so it’s in my price range.

If I were to blind-taste this wine I would guess it was an over-the-top, oaked red blend. I was about to say cab but this is no cab. It’s fruit forward with lots of lush dark berry flavors. When I opened this bottle last night I was hit with a heavy oak presence. Now it’s 24 hours later and I don’t detect the oak. But I very much detect the fruit flavors. The aroma has some very bright notes almost like sniffing cherry soda.

Not a light bodied wine. Its kinda heavy.

Tonight it’s more zin-like than last night. The flavors were much more complex with that oaky presence and made it difficult to say it was zin like. Not to say that’s bad. We are talking about a $5 wine that I think I could pass off to my friends that like more of a fruity wine than a bone-dry cab.

Their website says ‘Robust in the best way possible. Kicks off with ruby red fruit flavors, like cherries and raspberries, then things get interesting with a hint of spice and a lasting finish.” The label though says “Aromas of vanilla and spicec omplement the fingering finish.”

Last night the finish wasn’t lingering. It jumped up with lots of flavor then cut off pretty guick. No lingering about it. Tonight, it lingers. Nicely I might add.

Barefoot wines are usually non-vintage and this one has no mention of year. It also has no mention of the grapes used. I’ve always known that a wine has to contain 75% of a grape before it can be called that varietal but I thought it was some California regulation. I did some research Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau sets this standard. But they don’t require you say which grapes are mixed in. I wouldn’t be surprised if this wine has some other grapes in there. Being non-vintage wine anything could be in there and from any year. (I did notice on their little gold label that brags about being a Best Buy by Wine Enthusiast has a line “Barefoot’s Zinfandel Blends have WOW.” So it probably is a blend.

I guess I could be a wine snob but since I actually like this wine I’ve decided none of that bothers me. I also know that I could buy a bottle tomorrow and it might really suck because it could have been made or bottled in a different year.

So, if you are looking for a nice $5 wine and something that has lots of fruit then give this one a try.

If you want to read about their history –From their Website. I always figured it was an invented label by someone like Bronco Wine. In 1986 Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey took a sleepy label that had been created by Davis Bynum back in 1965 and started producing wines. They grew and grew until they teamed up with E. & J. Gallo in 2005. Now Gallo does make a lot of jug wine but they have some very nice labels as well. Whether or not any of the other varietals are worth me plucking down $5 I don’t know. I might have to check it out.

*When saving my photos I was warned I was replacing photos with the same name. I went back and found photos I took of this wine back in September 2011. The shot was of the bottle with a bunch of bacon. Hmmm. Wonder what I was making that night. Guess better late than never.

Score: 3 Corks
Dan’s Rating System:

1 Cork: Use it to make tie-dye T-shirts.
2 Corks: Serve it as the 3rd wine of the evening after people don’t care.
3 Corks: Snap up a few extra bottles while they are still on sale.