Ravenswood Vintner's Blend Zinfandel 2003 typicity

Hello, Saturday self and Xina took the exam which we have been worrying about for the last half year - the 2-honors1 in the Swedish Society of Tastevins. It was less than a success. WHile we may have pbutted the theory (quick: which are the ten crus in Beaujolais? what vitamin do you find in wine? what river pbuttes Rüdesheim?), the practical test, which involved identifying 3 whites and 4 reds (main variety, cou ntry, and district) was difficult. Why? I blame globalisation, and possibly Ozification (looking out at a post-equinoctical snowfall, I find it counterintuitive to blame global warming), and the Swedish monopoly. Main reason: wines at about SEK 100 do not have a lot of personality. They are too young, and too much cast in a mold - they are all more or less like your generic Australian wine 2, because Swedes like that, or, most Swedes do, if they don't prefer vodka, but that is another newsgroup (most liekly, alt.drunken.bastards). What made me get up to speed was the ZInfandel. Don't get me wrong, I have been to formal tastings with higher-end ZINs (WITH food, WITH food) - the kind that are created by Helen THurley 3 and costs c 545 SEK. Here, we were presented with Ravenswood Vintner's Blend Zinfandel 2003. I learned that on Wineclub.com this cost USD 6.49. In Sweden, it is SEK 119 which translates at a rough exchange rate of 7.5 SEK to a USD into USD 15.87. Now, how typical of ZInfandel is it? My guess: not much. I would guess, but please correct me if I am wrong, that this is the kind of wine that fits nicely into the slot 1½ step above the two-buck-chuck. Ahem. My guess was a young sangiovese. I was wrong. The young sangiovese was the one that smelled of bananas and marshmallows - the one I thought might be a ... Zin.