Welcome to Zinfanatic.com, the location for Zinfandel wine fans and people who want to learn more about the quintessential American wine.  We will use this forum to discuss Zinfandel news, wineries, fans, events and other information.  In the future, we hope to have participation on the part of Zinfandel growers, wineries and fans.

The foundation of Zinfanatic.com will be our reviews and rankings of Zinfandel wines.  A group of Zinfanatics will conduct blind tastings of currently available Zinfandel wines as often as possible.  Generally, we will taste a group of approximately 10 Zinfandel wines from a specific viticultural area such as Lodi or Dry Creek Valley, or having some other common theme.

We plan to report our blind tasting results in several ways:

1.  The consensus favorites – and not so favorites – of the blind tasted group in rank order of preference.

2.  Descriptions of the wines based on the color, nose, flavor, texture, finish and other characteristics observed by our Zinfanatics.  The aromas and flavors mentioned by the most Zinfanatics are listed first in order.

3.  A score for the wine based on a 100-point scale used by many other reviewers.  This score is determined by our senior Zinfanatic rather than the group.

Wine rankings are determined based on the preferences of the Zinfanatic tasters rather than according to the numerical score assigned by our senior reviewer.  For example, a wine assigned a score of 92 by our senior Zinfanatic that finished third in the group preference rankings will be ranked behind a wine with a score of 87 that finishes second in the group preference rankings.  We believe that the wine ranked highest in the group preference rankings is likely to have the greatest appeal to the largest number of our readers.  However, you are encouraged to weight each factor based on your own preferences.

Welcome and enjoy!  We look forward to your feedback and participation in Zinfanatic.com.