Right Before The Stress
TASTING NOTES: “Jammy fruit, pepper and spice, mulberry and spice cake come together in the aroma to a rich full-bodied wine with bright red-purple fruit. The dark chocolate umami center extends to a lingering finish balance with light astringency. Oak aging contributes to the rounded complexity with just a hint of sweetness. Try this wine with any grilled meat or chicken, or pair with pizza, pasta and burgers!” (AbV 14.5%, pH 3.46)
VARIETALS: 83% Zinfandel, 9% Barbera, 8% Petite Sirah
BARRELS: 31 months in French oak barrels.
PAIRS WITH: pizza, pasta and burgers!
THAT REMINDS ME OF: Infixation.
There’s a technical term for what “InZINerator” is doing — jamming a word into the middle of another word — and it’s called infixation (or, if you want to get real Greek about it, tmesis, from temnein, “to cut”). English barely tolerates infixes, which is part of why they’re so satisfying when they land. “Abso-freakin-lutely.” “Fan-damn-tastic.” “Guaran-friggin-tee.” Linguists will tell you the insertion point isn’t random either — it almost always happens right before the stressed syllable, which is why “unbe-lievable” works and “un-believ-able” sounds like a malfunction.
Most infixes in casual English are, politely, expletives — the whole reason the phenomenon got studied seriously is a 1972 paper literally titled “Fucking Infixation.” So “InZINerator” is doing the same structural trick as your uncle’s favorite curse word, just with a grape varietal standing in for the profanity. Somewhere a linguistics professor is either delighted or extremely tired.
ICYMI, you have two choices:
Worried Summer heat might get to your wine before your wine gets to you? Order from this sale, the page you’re on right now, and we’ll get it to you at a cooler time of year (October)!
Want Protected Summer Shipping and don’t think heat will be a problem? Order from the sale linked here! We’ll still try to get them to you with as little travel time as we can.
Some places get absurdly hot during the Summer, and in particularly unpleasant circumstances, it can damage a wine. Most people get theirs no problem, but there are a couple each Summer that fall victim to the sun no matter how fast we get them to you. If you’ve experienced that before or are afraid it’ll happen to you, we’ll hold your order for you until October, if you order from the Summer Hold sale. We are reasonably sure things will be cooler then.
