This was a close one. Only three points separated our first-place wine from the second-place bottle, and our bronze finisher was behind by only two points. Our winner was also the best value of the night. Indeed, one could purchase two bottles of the winning Margaret River Chardonnay for the price of one bottle […]
World of Chardonnay #3 Read More »
The theme for our blind tasting in May was “Bring A Bottle From Your Cellar.” That is, we asked our tasters to pick out a bottle that they’ve been saving in their cellar, and to bring it unidentified for blind evaluation of its merits, and to see if we could figure out what it was.
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The last time we blind tasted Gigondas and Vacqueyras was mid-pandemic (October 2020), where social distancing rules prevented us from having our full complement of six tasters. While we were happy with the results the last time, we were eager to explore these wines again with a full table of tasters. At the surprise reveal, we
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This was our first time comparing Dolcetto in our blind tasting format, which is surprising, because these wines are easy to like, with an approachable style at attractive prices. Marchesi di Barolo’s Madonna del Dono bottling was represented twice, with the 2021 revealed as our night’s winner, and the 2023 showing well, but not
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We’ve compared bottles from Saint Emilion before (most recently in March 2020), but this time we decided to open it up and include any wine from Bordeaux’s right bank. While four people ended up bringing a Saint Emilion, a Fronsac and a Pomerol were also included. Having some bottle age was somewhat of an advantage
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Our fourth comparison of wines from Amarone della Valpolicella was thoroughly enjoyable, as one would expect from this highly-regarded appellation. The top wines showed great intensity and generosity, but were also balanced by solid acidity and focus. The winner turned out to be the best value of the night at a reasonable $62. Reasonable for
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We have had Riesling featured in our blind tastings in the past, but this was our first comprehensive comparison of examples from around the globe. Split evenly between Old World and New World appellations, we aimed to showcase a wide variety of wines, all in dry to nearly dry styles. Our top three wines
This was only our third comparison of Albariño (the last was in June 2019), and while previous competitions included only Iberian versions, this time we threw in two from South America. For the second month in a row, the winner was also the best value of the night, coming in at only $15, a classic
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Somewhat surprisingly, this was our first comparison of six bottles of Chenin Blanc. Paired into teams of two, we pitted Team France against Team South Africa and Team United States. Overall, we were happy with how well these matched with a range of foods, and while all shared similar aromatics and high acids, each
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A long time had passed since we last compared California Zinfandels blind (we previously tried these in December 2015). This was a thoroughly enjoyable tasting, and a reminder that even though Zins are often described as “gateway” reds for their overt character, they can also be complex, interesting values that come in a range of styles.
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