Hic!! (Blossom Hill White Zinfandel)

Member Name: jo1l

Product:	Blossom Hill White Zinfandel
Date:	08/09/05 (1396 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap and cheerful summer vino

Disadvantages: none

With all this lovely weather we've been having I've forsaken my beloved red vino in favour something a little more refreshing. Never having been a great fan of white wine it was to the rose section I headed in my local Morrison's. Now the only problem with a rose is you can sometimes end up with something that is just far too sweet for my liking, but at £3.79 a bottle I was willing to give Blossom Hills Californian White Zinfandel a go.

A white zinfandel is not as the name suggests a white wine it is indeed a rose or as our Californian friends call it a blush wine. White zinfandel is made obviously with zinfandel grapes now some of you wine buffs will realize that the zinfandel grape is actually a red grape. In order to keep it's slightly pale red colour the skins of the grapes are quickly removed after pressing to stop the pigment from the skins seeping into the juice, this allows the resulting wine to have a pale pink colour which with different producers can vary from a mere hint of pink to a full blown salmon pink. It was with the boom in white wine quaffing in the 70's and 80's that the white zinfandel was thought up by the producers of traditional reds as a way of getting rid of the glut of zinfandel grapes.

Blossom Hills White Zinfandel comes in your standard 70cl bottle with three non descript labels on it - gone are the day's I buy wine because the bottle had a pretty picture on it, now a days I tend to read the blurb on the labels before making a purchase. Blossom Hill claim that this medium rose wine gives you hints of strawberries, raspberries and watermelon.

As with any white or rose wine this is most definitely best served chilled so either take a look to see if there is one already in the chiller cabinet in your local off licence or be prepared to wait a couple of hours as it becomes nicely chilled in your fridge - it's well worth the wait as there is nothing more sickly than a warm white or rose wine!

On decorking this wine - yes it does have a proper cork and not one of those horrible plastic imitation corks you'll be greeted with a pleasant aroma which has a very slight fruity smell with just a hint of raspberry to it.

On decanting to a glass you'll notice that the wine is a deep reddy pink shade obviously at the Blossom Hill winery they must leave those grape skins in a wee while longer than other wine producers do.

With any wine it's not the bottle or the colour of it that's important it's that all important taste. Having tried other rose wines and found them to be rather too sickly sweet for my taste buds I'll admit I was a bit skeptical when I first tried this wine. The initial taste you get as it tickles your taste buds is of a jammy like taste but thankfully with only a mere hint of sugariness. Once this dies down you get a rather crisp tart like taste very reminiscent of the watermelon that Blossom Hill claim it tastes like. It has a very refreshing tang to it.

It's a pleasant wine which is very gluggable, ideally suited to long hot days in the garden or evenings spent around a barbeque. It is by know means a great wine by any stretch of the imagination but for it's price tag of £3.79 it serves it's purpose very well especially in this hot weather we've been having.

Cheers!!

Summary: A cheap and cheerful summer vino