Not sure what’s in this–other than sugar. It’s got a dirty, chemically smell: construed, forced and burnt with lavish layers of Paso-type construction plastered all over electrical fire and swilly bitterness. I didn’t know this winery still existed: I went there once about 25 years ago–before I even moved here–and of course the *dog* thing got instant asterisks, with the bottle-contents following closely. The nose is positivley horrible: gaudy and glorified and ‘fruit’ a not-fresh strain of compost-bin putridity.
It tastes slightly better than it smells, with a reasonably clean entrance of briary berry and biting structure. But the sweetness over-takes all: a jellied, pancake-syrup gravitas affliction finishing thinly and rather UN-structured, leaving the mouth awkward and raw, festering with coma-inducing sugary burns. This is wine for the 99 through-and-through–a Paso Robles wine fanatic’s wet DREAM. These are the wines–the classic Paso wines–which give everyone a bad name and need to go away. Forever. Santa Barbara has never made a wine like this. A mainstream Sonoma producer would never make wine like this. Napa doesn’t make wine like this. Hell, LODI or Calaveras or Amador has stopped making wines like this. But here we have old-skool Paso: mired in Zin-fest and Zin-bitch and Zinfully-yours and Chronic and Tobin James introducing the 21st century. So put that in your “World-Class-Wines!” pipe and smoke it. And please, Paso: stop making these wines,
2019 DOVER CANYON ‘Tre Noce’ Zin/SY 60/40 Paso Robles 15.5
Stephen McConnell 