Wine Down Wednesday: Carnivor 2018 Zinfandel


OK – in this edition of Wine Down Wednesday, let’s talk Zinfandel. Specifically, let’s chat for a moment about the 2018 Carnivor Zinfandel. I poured a glass of this yesterday evening…..and let the games begin.

I scored this vino from a local shop, and got what I thought was a decent price for it – the equivalent of roughly 2.5 gallons of gas out here in Orange County, California. In hindsight – I would have been better off either a) trying to drive my Jeep with this in my tank, or b) chugging the 2.5 gallons of 87 octane from the local 7 – 11 gas pump.

At the outset, it didn’t seem too bad. Hey, the wine looked red in the bottle, so we must be ok, right? When I popped the cork, it slid out easy…as if to say “get me the hell out of here, because what’s inside this bottle is making me agitated.” Did I heed the cork’s warning? I say ney ney. I proceeded to pour this into a glass.

Did the glass deserve what I just did to it? Probably not. But if it could talk, I’m sure it would have cursed my ancestors as mindless, tasteless troglodytes as the liquid filled it. But moving on….

The first scent I picked up when I rose the glass to my rather untrained nose was…well….indescribable. It took me a few long moments to put into words what I was picking up from the glass. But finally, it came to me…..

Dismay. Utter dismay.

On the nose, this wine made me sad. It made me question my life choices up to this very moment. Had I wronged someone in a prior life? Have I angered the Gods that sit high atop Mount Fermentedgrapes? Then it came to me: this was a triple dog dare issued by Dionysus himself. In for a penny, in for a pound…so I tasted it.

The next seven minutes are a bit hazy. You know that little green fairy that one may see whilst imbibing copious amounts of Absinth in a dive bar within the seedy part of Amsterdam? Well I remember him deciding to show up, and for some reason he was playing the theme song to the movie Deliverance on a banjo. He was joined by the ghost of Howard Cosell who, for some odd, reason, decided to begin doing the play by play….

“Unbelievable…he actually took a sip and DOWN GOES ZINFANDEL! DOWN GOES ZINFANDEL! Oh – the wine hit his tongue and my oh my he winces in pain! How he’s still standing is a mystery to this reporter…..”

Bottom line on this one: this wine mad me angry at the world. End of sermon.