If you’re as curious as I am–and cheap–seriously marked-down bottles of older vintages lingering on shelves are just plain CATNIP.  Are there misses?  Oh Dear Dog, THOUSANDS.  But you HAVE to try them, right?  Always one of the Three R’s of Zin, never was much of a fan of the ‘Vintner’s Cuvee’ CA-appell stuff, but when I saw a handful of these the other day marked down from 23$ to 5$!!!, I bit.  Dark garnet and bricking pretty good.  Nice burnt-rubber and wet-leather nose with just a touch of gasoline.   Shockingly, a full, polished bouquet.  Light fruit–a nice sort, but def light, and solid acids backing things up.  Tannins polished to perfection into the long finish.  A cheap, but solidly-made wine when young and smoothed out into a quaffable DD with far more interest than something young.  I am glad I bought them all and will enjoy the crap outa them in the next year or so.  A shocking 14-6.  I totally expected a “California” middle-shelf blend to be far lower.  B+ wine, and so interesting to taste stuff like this.  14.6