Wicked fun

Full diclosure: Mitch Omer and Cynthia Gerdes (pictured below) are two of my best friends in the world.

(photo by Elena Bauer)

They’re also the owners — along with Steve Meyer and Mark “Pappy” Anderson — of Hell’s Kitchen, with locations in downtown Minneapolis and Duluth.

Now, I’m not the only one who loves Hell’s Kitchen. It’s gotten great reviews from nearly every local critic and several national ones — most notably Roadfood’s Jane and Michael Stern. But the truth is, these people probably could serve me warm seawater in one of Mitch’s old size-14 boots, and I’d rave.

So I’m going to cut out the usual “taster’s notes” here and just give you the facts. I spent the weekend up north, listening from afar to the blues and tasting wines at HK in Canal Park. My favorite set is a weekend series of special Zins from Alexander Valley Vineyards in Healdsburg, California.

On Friday nights they serve Temptation Zin 2005 — a big, fruity, juicy, sexy blend of 92 percent Zinfandel grapes and 8 percent Sangiovese, with splashes of blackberry and spice.

Saturday nights, it’s Sin Zin 2005 — a zestier wine with layers of cedar, raspberry, and black pepper that’s 100 percent Zin. A gold medal winner in the Los Angeles International Wine Competition.

And on Sundays, of course, there’s Redemption Zin 2005 — a smoother, “tamer” wine than the other two; also 100 percent Zinfandel grapes, but more blueberry, cherry, and oaken in tone.

Beware, these are all rich, “hot” wines, with alcohol contents in the 14.5% range. So it’s probably best not to taste them as I did, all in a row from Temptation to Redemption and then back again. But they were bold and fun and perfect with Hell’s Kitchen’s heavenly heuvos rancheros — also just different enough from one another to keep me snitching sips, trying to figure out which was which.

Of course, my husband was drinking abstemiously and holding the keys, ready at any moment to drive us back to our hotel and take advantage of the effects wrought by those wicked wines.