by Fredric Koeppel
The Commercial Appeal You won't feel stuck in Lodi again if you can find a bottle of the Phillips Vineyard Old Vines Zinfandel 1998, made in that region at the cooler edge of California's Central Valley, southeast of Sacramento. Lodi, name of a town and an AVA (Approved Viticultural Area), produces about half the zinfandel grapes in the state, and it's home to several very large operations, including Robert Mondavi's Woodbridge division.
Don't confuse this small winery, owned and operated by brothers Michael and David Phillips, with R.H. Phillips Vineyard, a far larger producer in the Dunnigan Hills of Yolo County, west of Sacramento.
The Phillips brothers are fifth-generation farmers in Lodi, and in addition to growing grapes - 90 percent of which they sell to other wineries - and making wine, they grow fruit and vegetables and operate a fruit and vegetable stand, a bakery and cafe.
The Phillips Old Vines Zinfandel 1998 is an exceptionally pure and clean zinfandel that teems with vivid black currant, plum and black cherry scents and flavors, toasty vanilla-soaked oak and black pepper; blueberry and loganberry, leather and potpourri and prunes tinge the background. Excellent. About $18.
The other absolute winner in the Phillips roster is the Roussanne 1999, California, which features an incredibly enticing bouquet of peach, apricot and honeysuckle leaning to herbaceousness and a wild greengage note and delicious slightly chalky citrus flavors touched with petrol and rose petal; it's plush, but balanced with plenty of acid and stony elements. Exquisite. About $18.
Four other Phillips wines are pleasant but can't match the quality of the zinfandel and roussanne.
The Phillips Symphony 1999, Lodi - the grape is a hybrid of muscat of Alexandria and a light-colored grenache - smells like dusty peaches and pears, dried roses and violets; it's sweet, but crisp and clean, with rich citrus flavors and a scintillating touch of muscadine foxiness. Very good. About $10.
The Phillips Viognier 1999, California, however, is undistinguished save by its appealing density. Good. About $15.
The Phillips Old Vine Carignan 1998, Lodi, is simple but attractive, featuring cranberry-blueberry-plum scents and flavors and intriguing dark hints of spice and tobacco. Very good-. About $10.
Neither deep nor profound, the Phillips Syrah 1998, Lodi, is still ripe, warm and fleshy, focusing on plummy blackberry and currant flavors, creamy oak and spice and black pepper qualities. Very good-. About $14.
Other wines:
Sonoma County's Geyser Peak Winery has introduced a "Block Collection" that features wines made from certain "blocks" or parts of vineyards determined to represent unique if not superior quality.
The executive vice president and winemaker at Geyser Peak is Australian Daryl Groom, who joined the winery in 1989 and flat-out turned the mediocre producer upside down .
The Geyser Peak Block Collection Big River Ranch Chardonnay 1998, Russian River Valley, reflects its oak heritage - 100 percent barrel-fermented; eight months aging in 75 percent American oak-25 percent French oak - but that element is deftly handled, even the American oak, which is unusual for a chardonnay, to produce a shapely frame rather than a monolithic presence.
The wine is intensely pure and clean, ripe, earthy and smoky, fraught with classic pineapple-grapefruit flavors, heaps of spice and a firm gravelly permutation. 550 cases. Excellent. About $23.
The Geyser Peak Block Collection Kuimelis Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 1997, Alexander Valley, is aged 16 months in 65 percent American oak and 35 percent French oak for a texture that's as soft as velvet woven with the power of coal dust. This luscious 100 percent cabernet wine is thick, dense and chewy, and it pulls up smoke, dried thyme and potpourri equally with forest and underbrush and very concentrated black currant and black raspberry flavors. 1,239 cases. Excellent. About $28.
Also 100 percent cabernet, the Geyser Peak Block Collection Vallerga Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 1997, Napa Valley, is aged 18 months in 100 percent American oak, and it shows. The oak doesn't overshadow the intense cassis and black raspberry fruit, but you can't mistake its abundant influence in scintillating spice and mineral elements and lots of dried porcini and underbrush. Give it three to five years. 686 cases. Very good+. About $35.
Oak used not so judiciously characterizes two out of three wines from Sonoma County 's Armida label. Armida is the beautiful enchantress of Tasso's epic romance "Jerusalem Delivered" (1581) and possessor of a gorgeous garden of sensual wonders, but I found little of sensual appeal about this producer's pinot noir and merlot.
The Armida Chardonnay 1998, Russian River Valley, is ripe and buttery, fragrant with honeysuckle and wet gravel and rather urgently spicy and toasty; these effects calm down nicely, however, leaving the impression of an integrated wine that's bright without being brash and vivid with pineapple-grapefruit flavors. Excellent. About $17.
The Armida Pinot Noir 1998, Russian River Valley, opens with enticing scents of black cherry, smoke, cola, cinnamon and cloves and an earthy element that quickly overpowers everything else. The wine is stiff with oak and unwieldy, a terrible fate for a pinot. Not a success. About $18.
Aged 18 months in French and American oak, the Armida Merlot 1997, Russian River Valley, is defined by wood both in nose and mouth, a characteristic that swamps every other quality. Not a success. About $22.
(E-mail koeppel@gomemphis.com or write The Commercial Appeal, PO Box 134, Memphis, TN 38101.)
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