Turley Fatigue

Turley Zins have been a longtime favorite of mine. When we moved to the bay area about 10 years ago we fell in love with the Turley Hayne Vineyard wine and would drive miles to drink it at restaurants we heard were carrying it.  Since then we have become consistent buyers off the mailing list and have seen our allocation grow from 3 bottles to 3 cases. Everytime the order form arrives in the mail I pledge to buy it all and sell some to my friends and everytime the wine arrives I keep it and drink it with my friends.  It is always a crowd pleaser.  This year I collected cash upfront from two fellow wine-os and sadly delivered the wine to one of them yesterday. My sadness was short lived.

Last night my wife and I pulled the 2004 Dogtown. Dogtown is a vineyard in Lodi. The appellation has some unique characteristics. (Generally speaking) Zins from there are not too hard to blindly identify (jammy ripe fruit, vanilla, earth, and of course black pepper flavors). While I am sure there are exceptions it seams to me that Lodi fruit is turned more often than not turned into ultra high alcohol wines.  The 04 Dogtown is an exception chiming in at 15.8%!  It was delicious but probably not the best wine to accompany dinner (I stuck to cheese and crackers while drinking it).  My days of drinking wine without food are few and far between and the appeal of Turley is waning.

It has become increasingly difficult for me to remember and distinguish one Turley vs. another Turley. Unless I am drinking them side-by-side they all taste pretty much the same- as described above.  Hayne Vineyard excluded- I'll remember that bottle of 91 the rest of my life.  With Turley's expansion I had expected a greater range in the wines. Maybe my palette is fatiguing..... but with some many great wines out there I’ll continue to offer a portion of my allocation to fellow advocates.