RELIVING MY ROCK ‘N ROLL GLORY (WITH AN OLD VINE ZINFANDEL)

I was fascinated when some friends of ours, Ben and Brooke, were looking for a particular Zin that I hadn’t heard of – which is rare when a wine gets past me and my maniacally obsessive need to be the first to know about such things. And they weren’t the only ones looking for the Predator Zinfandel Lodi 2008 (Grade=Outstanding). We hadn’t gotten several requests for it within a week, and when I asked my sales rep, Jimmy – from Bryant Distributing – about it, he told me he had just gotten the brand in stock, and we immediately ordered a few cases.

It disappeared in only a couple of days.

More ordered, more sold, and I can’t help but chuckle at its name. Not because of its ironic moniker, referencing the organic pest controller, the ladybug, but because of its slight throwback to a point in time when I was far younger, and the 1980’s got the better of me.

Predator was actually the name of my first rock band, formed when I was 16 with my cousins Tim and Mark (who got bored and moved on to cars), their neighbor and our good friend Troy (who inevitably became a professional musician with the likes of Tennessee’s Every Mother’s Nightmare) and newfound friend (and still so) Dale, who is now a recording engineer and producer in Atlanta. We weren’t much – just playing a few songs, with me simply shrieking above the din of cheap instruments. I think about how friggin’ awful my voice was back then and I shiver in remorse. It was a cool thing to do growing up, and Dale, Troy and myself all ended up pursuing music, with Troy and Dale moving onward and upward, both of my cousins becoming more respectable family men, and me, hitting a big brick wall at 29 and returning to Earth after an inebriating run at pseudo-stardom.

Every time I look at the Zinfandel section in our store now, I think back to a much more innocent and reckless time, when the allure of rock ‘n’ roll glory filled me with a singular conviction, and a joy that was much a saving grace as it was hobby.

Drinking the Predator Zinfandel, the slight addition of 2% Syrah and 1% Petite Sirah gives it a sexy complexity, with its cherry pie, blackberry jam, Darjeeling and Oolong teas, smoky vanilla and white pepper notes sloshing about in a juicy, full-bodied context that is every bit the olfactive version of a Judas Priest song, something akin to “Victim of Changes” or “The Green Manalishi With the Two-Pronged Crown”.

Check out the Predator today, and maybe you too can drink up some old school rock ‘n’ roll glory.