Installment #1 (I'm nearly done typing my notes, but I've got to run and don't have time to complete them right now, so here's the list of wines and the group scoring for now - more to follow soon!)

Yesterday was our Monthly BAWE tasting, the theme this month: Sonoma Coast vs. Russian River Pinot Noir. How we ended up with 13 people and 21 wines remains something of a mystery but there you have it! It was a great tasting, with some great disappointments (corked Marcassin – AGAIN!!), some revelations ( who’s ever heard of (Orogeny)?) and some confirmations (Dehlinger remains a top producer of Pinot). Here are the wines and the votes – in parenthesis are the number of 1st place votes/2nd place votes, followed by a weighted score – 3 points for 1st, 2 points for 2nd), with the top two wines of each flight in bold.

Flight #1
1998 Landmark Kastania - CORKED
2000 Argyle “Nuthouse” Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley (4/2 - 16 points) #2 wine of the flight!
2000 Flowers Camp Meeting Ridge Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast (0/0 - 0 points)
2001 Wesmar Olivet Lane Pinot Noir, RRV (4/6 - 24 points) #1 wine of the flight!
1997 Mueller Pearlessence Pinot Noir, RRV (3/2 - 13 points)
2001 Merry Edwards Olivet Lane Pinot Noir, RRV (0/2 - 4 points)
1997 Marcassin Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast - CORKED

Flight #2
1999 Hartford Jenifer’s Vineyard Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast (0/1 - 2 points)
2000 Dehlinger High Plains Pinot Noir, RRV (7/0 - 21 points) #1 wine of the flight!
2001 Siduri Sapphire Hill Pinot Noir, RRV (2/2 - 10 points)
2000 J Vineyards Robert Thomas Pinot Noir, RRV (0/0 - 0 points)
2002 Mac Murray Ranch Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast (3/4 - 14 points)
2001 Dehlinger Pinot Noir, RRV (2/7 - 20 points) #2 wine of the flight!

Flight #3
2001 Iron Horse Thomas Rd. Pinot Noir, Green Valley, RRV (2/1 - 8 point)
2002 (Orogeny) Pinot Noir, Green Valley, RRV (1/8 - 19 points) #1 wine of the flight!
2001 Fort Ross Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast (4/0 - 12 points)
2001 Dehlinger Goldridge Pinot Noir, RRV (4/2 - 16 points) #2 wine of the flight!

Flight #4
2002 Castle Rock Pinot Noir, RRV - CORKED
2001 Dumol Pinot Noir, RRV (2/6 - 18 points)
2002 Radio Coteau Savoy Pinot Noir, Anderson Valley (4/4 - 20 points) #2 wine of the flight!
2000 Flowers Camp Meeting Ridge Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast (6/2 - 22 points) #1 wine of the flight!

We were fortunate enough to attend this WONDERFUL BAWE event for the first time. Thanks Mr. and Mrs. EW for the invite. Finally got to meet Wine_Mook and GATC face-to-face. Great to see davidn, cooker, Jill, Eric_Lundblad and SF Wine again. Also a pleasure meeting Mark, Mark and Mary Beth (?). What a terrific line up of wines. My picks for each flight were:

• Flight 1 - WesMar #1 and Argyle #2
• Flight 2 - Dehlinger High Plains Pinot Noir #1 and MacMurray Ranch #2
• Flight 3 - Orogeny #1 and Dehlinger Goldridge Pinot Noir #2
• Flight 4 - DuMol #1 and Flowers #2

Can't wait to attend the next event! Thanks again BAWE for making us feel a part!

Quote:

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Thanks again BAWE for making us feel apart!

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I thought you two sat right next to each other.

Or maybe you meant, "a part"? If that's the case whose part were you feeling?

These are great notes. Thank you. I would love to attend one of these but during the week is a killer. Oh well. I have a question. It seems that the 2000 Flowers CMR was in both Flight 1 and Flight 4. In Flight 1 it did quite poorly, yet in Flight 4 it was the top wine. Am I missing something? Thanks
Greg

Also many times wines show differently because they are up against different wines in the flight. For me, the "wine of the flight" is a comparison of all the wines of that flight. The wines in flight 1 were better, and the wines in flight 4 were not.

Am I making any sense at all?

On the other hand I would debate the wisdom of comparing a flight of four wines to a flight of six......the odds don't you know.

On to the notes!

We started things off with a 1987 Acacia St. Clair Vineyard Pinot, which (as expected) was showing pretty tired, but still drinkable.

Flight #1
1999 Landmark Kastania – CORKED

2000 Argyle “Nuthouse” Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley

2000 Flowers Camp Meeting Ridge Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast

2001 Wesmar Olivet Lane Pinot Noir, RRV

1997 Mueller Pearlessence Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast

2001 Merry Edwards Olivet Lane Pinot Noir, RRV

1997 Marcassin Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast – CORKED
Of four bottles of this wine David has been kind enough to share, 3 have been corked. I really hope David takes this up with the winery, something had to have gone terribly wrong here.

Flight #2

1999 Hartford Jenifer’s Vineyard Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast

2000 Dehlinger High Plains Pinot Noir, RRV

2001 Siduri Sapphire Hill Pinot Noir, RRV

2000 J Vineyards Robert Thomas Pinot Noir, RRV

2002 Mac Murray Ranch Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast

2001 Dehlinger Pinot Noir, RRV

Flight #3

2001 Iron Horse Thomas Rd. Pinot Noir, Green Valley, RRV

2002 (Orogeny) Pinot Noir, Green Valley, RRV

2001 Fort Ross Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast

2001 Dehlinger Goldridge Pinot Noir, RRV

Flight #4
2002 Castle Rock Pinot Noir, RRV - CORKED

2001 Dumol Pinot Noir, RRV

2002 Radio Coteau Savoy Pinot Noir, Anderson Valley

2000 Flowers Camp Meeting Ridge Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast

We also need to add that absolutely outstanding Riesling that GATC poured for us - hopefully he will chime in here and post what it was.

whenever you see 30 new threads under a tn section, you just know it has to be eric even before you click on it

great notes eric, i thank you for all the hard work you put into these.

Now, as a followup, as promised to Davidn, a little fun with numbers regarding RRV vs. Sonoma Coast...

Discounting the corked wines and the ringers:

Total number of wines:
RRV: 10
Sonoma Coast: 5

Total group Points:
RRV: 153
SC: 50

Average group points per region:
RRV: 15.3
SC: 10

Looks like Russian River Valley wins over Sonoma Coast, at least by this (admittedly unscientific) method of scoring.

In all but one flight you only had one Sonoma Coast in the flight. That means that in every flight the Russian River Valley wines mathematically were advantaged because the Sonoma Coast wines could never get more than one vote in a flight whereas different bottles of Russian River Valley wines could get more than one vote. Plus the Sonoma Coast wines were a rather motley lot (Fort Ross and MacMurray Ranch?).

Agreed JW1, it's really an unfair tally - the SC wines were not well represented compared to the RRV wines, so the results (at least by my primitive method) are skewed. Any statisticians interesting in taking a stab at this to make it more "fair"?

EW: In other the other tasting group we are a part of, the organizer asks the participants what they are bringing. We still bring the wines blind to the tasting. The organizer then groups the wines into flights as to get equal representation of regions. Since the tastings are done at a restaurant (in this case) the organizer has the staff sort the flights. This way the organizer may know the wines in each flight, but doesn't know the order of the flights. The organizer will have the wines assigned to the flights, but the staff then sets the order that we taste them in.

Being said "Organizer" it is a headache, but it is the only fair way I found.

Sounds like an interesting approach, but in truth (and this may sound funny), this group isn't really concerned with necessarily being fair. The goal is simply to get together and explore various wines, and hopefully learn something from the experience. I think the casual nature of the group keeps it accessible and interesting.

Now if BAWE would only plan these dang tastings around our non-kid weekends we would be set