I buy Peterson wines from Locals year in and year out. I’ve been a member since April of 2003 when I stumbled across the tasting room with a former girlfriend. I joined the Nouveau Hicks that day. The lady is long gone, but Locals is still with me. Then I met the lady that is now my wife, so I brought her out to meet the Locals in 2006! She’s committed. Or maybe she should be! 🙂

Peterson makes some of the best wines in my cellar. Their Zinfandels, especially, just trip me out. I know wine is ‘supposed’ to be about food pairings, but some wines are soooo good that I just want to sip them by themselves, outdoors on the dark patio on a warm summer night so my senses are just flooded by the wine experience. Such is Peterson’s Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel. It is a conciousness-expanding bath of fragrance and flavor. I could list all the wonderful things I smell and taste in this wine, but I won’t. That’s on you.

If that wasn’t enough, Peterson also makes a range of other Zinfandels – another of my favorites (new!) is their ‘Old School, No-thinkin Just drinkin’ Zin. The 2008 was a rich, flavorful cherry/tobacco over-achiever whose label bore one of the most hilarious clean jokes ever re-told. I just ordered the 2009 and I haven’t tried it yet (I live several hundred miles away in Denver and UPS beats the crap out of shipped wine, so I let it sit a while to recover itself before I taste it) but the joke isn’t as good so I expect the wine will be even better.