There were nine Pinot Noirs from around the world in our first
"Drink, Pray, Make Wine Blind Tasting" last weekend. Our group
of 8 (7 women and 1 man) consisted of wine wholesalers, wine retailers, budding winemakers and general
wine lovers. We tried using the wine scoring sheet from Russ Beebe's Californiawinehikes
which did help initially to organize our individual experiences by a 20 point
system based on appearance, aroma, balance, body/texture, taste, finsih and
overall quality. However, we found the point system left us wanting more room
to roam- to wax poetic or at least offer more verbal discourse about our
experiences. It was soon apparent that the fun of social wine tasting is to
share our diverse palates. Everyone has a little different perspective and
that’s the fun of drinking wine.
Before I share the overall wine rankings and the wines we tasted, here’s what
we learned:
- Selecting
one varietal from different geographies is a great way to truly learn the
meaning of terroir. We all could tell a California product vs. a French import, but the other new world products were tougher to place.
- By not
seeing the bottle you can’t be influenced by what you think you know
including the price point. I was personally surprised by a wine I had
previously purchased and enjoyed over the summer did not stand up in
our tasting. Wow, that sort of blew my mind.
- The
temperature and O2 changes pretty fast so you need enough glasses to pour
and taste all the wines at the same time to level the playing field.
- Sampling
wine without food is weird. For many of us, we love wine because it pairs
with food so well. We rarely drink it solo these days. So to taste wine a la carte, the flavors can be almost out of context. For example, the
German Pinot Noir with low marks in the evening tasted a whole lot different (better) when we had
it the next afternoon with a bowl of lentil soup.
Wine Rankings of 1st Drink,
Pray, Make Wine Group Blind Tasting
Pinot Noir-Old and
New World
3 Highest Ranked
1. Peay-Scallop Shelf 2006 Sonoma Coast 14.2%
alcohol $52 retail Peay Vineyards
Tasting points: “Pretty” was the word falling out of our mouths with beautiful aromas and multilayered balanced flavors. See
Peay’s tasting notes on their website by Vanessa Wong, winemaker with whom I
hope to catch up with soon to hear about her thoughts on the 2008 grape and baby vintage.
2. Edgewood Estate 2001 Carneros 15+%
alcohol $24 retail (not available any longer but you can try Snooth. Jeff Gaffner winemaker. Tasting points: “A Cocktail Pinot” New Oak, Big with
good tannins still.
3. Vosne-Romanee 2005 Domaine Jean
Grivot 13% $52 at K&L Wines SF. Domaine Grivot applies an organic approach to viticulture, read more here at LaPaulee.com
Tasting Points: Flinty, shy nose, fennel-herb, lovely mineral thread, classic Burgundian-style.
The Others, not ranked due to a breakdown in our point rating system.
*Robert Stemmler Estate 2005 Carneros 14.4% $36 Robertstemmlerwinery
Tasting Points: Mid-Palate Moca, lite acid. Generally everyone said "Yum."
*Walter Hansel Russian River Valley North Slope Vineyard 2006 14.5% $38 Walter Hansel Tasting Points: Earth, Green Pepper, Hot, Harsh, but generally "good."
*Saint Clair Marlborough 2006 (Matt Thomson winemaker) 13.5% $15 Wine Sellers Ltd.
Tasting Points: Tight, metalic, nice body, got better the longer it breathed.
*Gevrey-Chambertin-Les Seuvrees Earl Domaine Castagnier 2005 13% $56 Jeff Welburn
Tasting Points: Sour mushrooms, Flawed?, needs food.
*Rheingau 2005 Trocken (Yes, a German Pinot Noir) 13% $20 Dee Vine Wines
Tasting Points: Strange Candy, Odd, Not good. Some liked this wine with food, some were just not convinced. For more on German Pinots-Are they a force to be reckoned with? See Greybeard's post on ReignofTerroir from Nov. 7.
*Patricia Green Estate Pinot Noir 2006 $42 Patricia Green Cellars
Tasting Points: SO2 detected, sweet.
