Bring Me Everything!

The planned tasting ran from about 3 to 5 this past Sunday. The unplanned party/tasting ran on until 1:30 in the morning when folks said "goodbye, great party, we really should do this again some time, too bad we have to go to work in the morning". I'm happy to report that a vast amount of good wine got consumed and that fun was had by all.

I'll start off my summary with a roll call of sorts. It's traditional for me to give everyone nicknames and it's a way to cut down on spam and other unsolicited contacts. I apologize that the names are boring, but I don't want lose any friends just over a blog posting! In no particular order:

• Wife My lovely and charming wife!


• TheBoss Knows more about wine than I do and is kind enough to share


• TravelGal Friend of TheBoss, wonderful person


• Sheena Looks like the beautiful warrior princess and probably won't mind me saying so


• LaughingGal Has a laugh so awesome that people pay to hear it


• Nemesis Enjoys wine and knows quite a bit about wineries here in VA


• AnarchyUK Really deserves a better nickname than this one


• LegalNoob Studying to be a lawyer for unknown reasons


• Clyde My lack of originality is showing


• Glassfan Always has a smile to warm the room


• TowerDweller Another Ballston-area resident we enjoy seeing

The second lineup is the wines that were designated for the tasting itself. We started off with 5 items on the list. That quickly grew to 9 since TheBoss, Nemesis and Glassfan brought bottles with them. I got all fancy and made up programs, which ended up just confusing folks since the new arrivals were interspersed with the originals. The actual tasting order went something like this:

• 2005 Vino Frizzante Prosesco di Coffi Trevisiani (Italy)


• 2004 Jardin Sauvignon Blanc (South Africa)


• 2004 Columbia Winery Gewurztraminer (Washington State, US)


• 2005 Chateau Ste Michelle Eroica Riesling (Washington State, US)


• 1999 Linden Hardscrabble Chardonnay (Virginia, US)


• 2002 Saintsbury Reserve Pinot Noir (California, US)


• 1987 Ridge Lytton Springs Zinfandel (California, US)


• 1998 Joseph Phelps Insignia (California, US)

There was also a nice spread of food to try with the wines as palate cleansers and experiments. At the start of the event the table looked very nice!
After suitable time to ponder the matter I had everyone give me their opinion of the best of the bunch. Most agreed that of the reds, the Insignia was the best. I agree with that, it was a pretty extraordinary wine that would do wonders for your next fancy dinner. If, that is, you happen to have won the lottery or come into some large inheritance. It's very expensive; if it had been anything but extraordinary I would have been disappointed. The Ridge and Saintsbury got high marks as well and were quality wines. It was pretty amazing how well the Ridge held up. 20 years is at the high end for aging a non-Bordeaux. TheBoss felt (and I agree with him) that the Saintsbury could have used a few years of aging. Among the whites the Washington Gewurztraminer and South African Sauvignon Blanc were popular but opinion here was spread. Some enjoyed the Riesling more, and I was in the minority voting for the Chardonnay (gasp!) and the Prosesco. It was about this time the table started looking a little ragged.

Paying attention during the tasting process was kind of strenuous, so we had to have a glass of wine to chill out. That went on for some time - approximately 8 hours. I probably could mention every single wine that was tried during this period but I'll skip to the good stuff. The 2005 Allan Scott Sauvignon Blanc (New Zealand) was wonderful. Very highly recommended. The Dobra Zinfandel was a great contrast to the Ridge even though almost 20 years separated them. There was a distinctive difference in style that was fun to talk about and both wines were very good. A 2005 white Bordeaux, the Chateau Les Arromaus was also very good and stood out from the crowd. The total damage was quite extensive.

I'll certainly do this again some time, perhaps next year. Hopefully I will be a bit better prepared with note cards and the like to get more impressions on paper. Having them relayed verbally at the end of the tasting, and then trying more wine, is definitely not a good recipe for the accurate recall of details.