Beringer Sparkling White Zinfandel

A few days back, I checked in on a discussion on The Wine Broad’s Board about good mass-production wines, including the issue of whether any such thing could possibly exist. I offered the Beringer Sparkling White Zin as one of my picks in this category, which helped prompt a rant about soulless wines from another commenter. All of which made me decide to chill another bottle and foist it on some unsuspecting friends.

I first tried the bubbly-that-cannot-speak-its-name when a sample came my way after I wrote a piece for a trade magazine about the state of the White Zin market—which has ebbed a bit but is by no means going away. I filled some flutes with it one night when we had a couple of our wine-savvy friends over, keeping the bottle well out of sight; and we all thought it was just plain delicious, festive, fun, everything you want from a casual pink sparkler. The joviality it prompted only increased when the label was revealed.

I did the same routine this weekend for another group of dinner mates, two of whom are in the wine business. And again, we were all pleased as punch, especially with the good acid balance that makes an off-dry wine zing in your mouth and with the refreshingly low alcohol.

Sure, it’s a bulk-process wine, fermented in a vat, not the bottle. It lays no claim to being deep. It carries on its gently sloping shoulders the vast burden of anti-White Zin snobbery, the legacy of decades of vilification, and yet somehow it just trudges along, hitting the spot, anyway.   

Price: about $9. Alcohol: 10.5%. Points: From a universe far, far beyond points.

Comments

[Steve Kempe]

I also tried the sparkling White Zen and was very pleased. I also was amazed at the flavor difference of the 2007 California Collection of the White Zen. It is much better than the past they have put out. I just finished a bottle of CCWZ and im getting ready to open the Sparkling!!! Enjoyed the review, Take care!!!