I was fortunate enough last night to meet up with Winebrat and the Captal Cork Dorks tasting group last night at Enotria in Sacramento for a blind theme, blind tasting, and blind rating tasting followed by one big helping of humble pie. We drank 3 flights of 4 red wines served with various cheese and bread appetizers. I'm going to lay it all on the line and put my notes here as taken for all to laugh hysterically at. Thankfully, not one of the attendees picked the theme
or was even close
so it lessens my pain slightly...
All wines were extremely generously supplied from Winebrat's cellar.
All wines were double decanted 45 minutes before the beginning of the tasting.
Wine 1- Roasted earth, big cherry, vanilla oak, very Aussie like, possibly MP. 86 points.
1996 Joseph Phelps Napa RP88, WS92
Wine 2- More traditional, some roasted qualities, more toasty oak, feels like a nice quality new world syrah. My WOTF. 91 points.
1996 Staglin RP90, WS90
Wine 3- Alban Vineyard, burnt rubber, some pine cone developing. 89 points.
1996 Cornerstone Howell Mtn. RP88, WS94
Wine 4- Mild Cherry, retiscent nose initially but good fruit in the mouth, nearly mature, Cote Rotie maybe? 90 points, drink now.
1996 Del Dotto
RP88, WS92
I thought all of the first four wines were syrah, another did too, others thought Italian Cab blends...
Wine 5- Dirty black cherry, lots of wood tannin (french oak) in the nose. Tastes of Grenache (others agreed) possibly CdP. Showed more fruit by dinner. 91 points.
1996 Gallo of Sonoma Estate RP90, WS94
Wine 6- More candied, smoke, vanillan, mint (increasingly so as the wine opened), cedar, chalky tannins. Excellent balance and my WOTN. Guessed Italian Super Tuscan... 94 points.
1996 Clark Claudon RP93, WS86
Wine 7- Big bold fruits, some tar, very ripe, almost too ripe. Possibly new world over extracted Pinot Noir. 90 points.
1996 Shafer Hillside Select
RP98, WS93
WIne 8- Out of balance, tannin, cherry fruit. Dumped.
1996 Araujo Eisele
86 points. RP94, WS94
Wine 9- Wild vanilla, band aids, chocolate, very well balanced. Others agreed that this was showing some VA. Consensus was this was Amerone. It was still my WOTF. 93 points.
1996 Pride Reserve RP99, WS94
Wine 10- Dark berries, mild oak, showing good tannic structure, but not terribly interesting. 89 points.
1996 Berringer Private Reserve RP91, WS90
Wine 11- Burnt rubber amd black pepper, the NASCAR nose blowing off with about 15 minutes. Good red fruits. 90 points.
1996 Chateau Montelena Estate RP93, WS92
Wine 12- A little toiletey
Got better, but eh... 87 points
1996 BV Georges de Latour RP88, WS92
Ah, so I guess you now know to take my tasting notes with one big grain of salt!!! With my own recent experience (Raymond Generations, Souverain Stuhlmuller) I have no idea what to make of these '96s these wines were all over the board and to say that they exibited little varietal character would be an overstatement. The only wine close to being past peak was the Del Dotto, which was mature, but still drank very nicely and was many's WOTF. I don't think there is any hurry to drink these wines, but I don't know where they are going. I'm going back to drinking young Bords where I can see the label!!!
Big thanks to Winebrat and Renea for hosting an truly memorable and definately humbling tasting. These are two extremely generous people who are about as gracious as you'll ever meet. Very lucky to know such great people.