The Wine Curmudgeon is never quite sure what to make of the Layer Cake wines. A year-old review of the shiraz was one of the most popular posts on the blog in 2010, and it's still getting comments. Is it the quality of the wine that elicits so much enthusiasm, or the quality of the label, what with it featuring a chocolate cake?
For the primitivio ($12, sample) the answer is the quality of the wine. It's made in Italy, but done in a decidedly New World Style -- lots of oak and lots of dark black fruit, with vanilla thrown in for good measure. But it also offers plenty of traditional zinfandel-style spice and brambliness, which helped balance the wine -- and the alcohol is only 13 1/2 percent. Another point in its favor: I tasted the wine about a year ago, and it wasn't as interesting as this. Another year of bottle aging seems to have helped.
Why the zinfandel reference? Because primitivo is apparently the same grape, though there is still some debate about the subject. In this, too many Italian primitivos I've tasted, including one the other night to compare to the Layer Cake, go whole hog for the New World zinfandel style without understanding what's involved. It's not a pretty sight.
Pair this with almost any Italian-American red sauce dinner (I did Mark Bittman's take on chicken parmigiana).
Nice, I will look for the Layer Cake Primivito! I liked the 2008 Il Trullo Primitivo (Puglia, Italy), which has been selling for about $10 in San Diego.
Posted by: Kriste Anderson | March 16, 2011 at 10:02 AM
There may be a debate, but it's pointless, Zinfandel has been proven genetically identical to Primitivo and Crljenak Kaštelanski by Dr. Carole Meredith; not the Baby Daddy, not fraternal twins, but identical. Hence Layer Cake Primitivo a.k.a. Zinfandel.
She also showed that Zin/Primitivo is indeed the Parent of Plavic Mali, much to Mike Grgich's chagrin...
She couldn't find Zin's parents however, positing that they may be so ancient as to no longer be growing anywhere.
Incidentally, I heard from a an internal source it took Layer Cake Wines 6 months of debate with the TTB to get the label approved with both names and it still remains an exception in the government's eyes.
Cheers!
Posted by: John | March 16, 2011 at 02:36 PM
@ Kristie..
Will keep an eye out for the Trulio. Thanks for the tip.
@John..
Pointless debate is what wine is about, no? Terroir, anyone?
Posted by: Jeff Siegel | March 16, 2011 at 03:52 PM