WOW! Whan an amazing event. Hats off to Adam Lee and Brian Loring who put together one incredible event. When we arrived, there were 6 tables with 4 places at each table. The first 5 Pinots (all Clos Pepe vineyard) were poured and ready for us to taste. But before that...Andrew Vingiello brought some barrel samples of his Pinots. The vultures (Brian Loring in particular... ) kept me from getting a taste or any info on what was he pouring. Help please!

After sampling Andrew's wine, we were seated and the tasting began.

Flight 1 - Clos Pepe Vineyard Pinots
Wine #1 - Very nice floral nose with hints of anise. Mostly balanced fruit (berry) and tannin on the palate. Ruby in color. I chose this as my #2 of the flight.

Wine #2 - Somewhat spicy nose with hints of cherry. Tart and tannic. Ruby in color. My #4 wine of the flight.

Wine #3 - Initally bretty IMO. Blew off over time. Fruity and floral nose with very little on the palate. Seemed closed to me. Dark ruby in color. My # 5 wine of the flight.

Wine #4 - Big fruity nose. Lots of depth and character. Very well balanced and complex. Still young, but very nice. Deep purple in color. My #1 wine of the flight.

Wine #5 - Slightly closed but some nice floral notes on the nose. Softer in the mouth. Not as much tartness as #2. Deep purple in color. My #3 wine of the light.

And the results:

• 5th Place - #2 2000 Hitching Post
• 4th Place - #1 Brewer-Clifton
• 3rd Place - #3 Clos Pepe
• 2nd Place - #5 Loring Wine Company
• 1st Place - #4 Siduri

There seems to some discrepency from a post by davidn on the original thread. I need to see who's right.

Flight #2 - Cargasacchi Vineyard
Wine #1 - Lots of beautiful floral overtones. Loved the nose on this wine. Smelled a little hot to me, but didn't check to see what the alcohol on it was. Purple in color. Very well balanced. My #1 wine of the flight.

Wine #2 - Smelled like fresh strawberries. Soft fruity nose. Nicely balanced. Purple in color. My #3 wine of the flight.

Wine #3 - Very powerful nose. Tons of spice with hint of cinnamon. Very smooth and nicely balance. Purple in color. My #1 wine of the flight.

The results:

• 3rd Place - #2 Brewer-Clifton
• 2nd Place - #1 Babcock
• 1st Place - #3 Siduri

The following is a list of wines opened after the official results were announced. The ones with the asterisk beside them are ones I got around to tasting.

• *2002 Pelerini Rosella's Vineyard Pinot Noir
• *2001 Pisoni Estate Pinot Noir
• *2000 Flowers Camp Meeting Ridge Pinot Noir
• *2001 Roar Gary's Vineyard Pinot Noir
• *2001 Roar Pisoni Vineyard Pinot Noir
• *2001 Sea Smoke Southing Vineyard Pinot Noir
• *2000 Lucia Gary's Vineyard Pinot Noir
• 1999 Arcadian Sleepy Hollow Vineyard Pinot Noir
• 2001 Gary Farrell Sonoma County Pinot Noir
• 2002 Acacia Beckstoffer Las Amigas Vineyard Pinot Noir
• 1999 Arctic Fog Floodgate Vineyard Medocino County Pinot Noir
• 1998 Dehlinger Goldridge Vineyard Russian River Valley Pinot Noir
• 2001 Babcock Cargasacchi Vineyard Pinot Noir
• ***2002 Siduri Carlisle Vineyard Zinfandel

The reason the 2002 Siduri Zin has 3 asterisks is because it was YUMMY!!!

Copious notes by Eric White to follow I'm sure! I will post pictures soon.

Thanks for the report, sounds like a blast!!!

Wow, you guys in CA have all the fun. Well, almost all the fun.

Sounds like quite a good time, more comments please!

I wanna know what bottle Jones had to give up to Adam. This should be interesting. Wish I could have been there. Sounded like great fun.

jb

Hats off to Siduri Wines for "bringing it" in all respects. It sounds like a great time. I'm a bit suprised at the Brewer Clifton showings but it makes me fairly happy with the receipt of my first Siduri order.

Here's a second for please posting the identity of the bottle that JW1 is giving to Adam.

Thanks for pulling this together and sharing the results.

The results prove that wine's quality diminishes with travel. Siduri prevailed from barrel to bottle to glass...a journey of 42 steps!

The bottle Jones sent was a 2000 Dennis Mortet Gevrey Chambertin 1er Cru.

That works.

Whew, I survived . What a great way to spend a Saturday!

Big thanks to Adam Lee and his staff for going all out to make this a terrific tasting. I need to compile my notes, but just a bit more details on the ranking. The calculation for the first flight was 5 points for 1st place, 4 points for 2nd, 3 points for 3rd, etc. The calculation for the 2nd flight was 3 points for 1st, 2 points for 2nd, 1 point for 3rd.

Flight #1, Clos Pepe:
2000 Hitching Post - 64 Points
2002 Brewer Clifton - 65 Points
2002 Clos Pepe Estate - 70 Points
2002 Loring - 71 Points
2002 Siduri - 95 Points

Flight #2, Cargasacchi:
2002 Brewer Clifton - 37 points
2002 Babcock - 50 points
2002 Siduri - 63 points

Congratulations to Adam for a resounding victory!

A couple of quick thoughts. First off, these wines cleary don't suck - any of them. As Davidn put it, this was an excersize of picking the best of the best, and I would be proud to have any or all of these in my cellar.

I found flight #2 much more difficult to judge than flight #1, all three Cargasacchis were of tremendous and near equal quality. In the end it was subtle differences that in these that enabled ranking.

As for flight #1, though I ranked the Clos Pepe Estate 4th in the lineup, I also felt it quite clearly had the most potential for improvement with some bottle age - we were just drinking this baby way too young thus it didn't show as well. Give it 3-5 years in the cellar and I'll bet it will blossom. Also, don't be mislead by the wide margin between wines 1 and 2, the Siduri and Loring. This represents total votes, and not an enourmous spread in wine quality - as far as I was concerned, these were actually quite close in quality, the Siduri just edging out in front of the Loring.

More soon as I have a chance to compile my notes.

In defense of the Brewer Clifton, IMO, it was a excellent wine but a lightweight fighting in the middleweight class. I think JW1 alluded to this in an earlier post but the BC was made of an elegant style and for that, it hit a home run. The wine is a beautiful expression of pinot typicity and an impressively complex wine with all kinds of nuances and subtleties. I rated the Siduri #1 but the BC was a close second.

They are both fine champs of their respective divisions but a lightweight is always going to get outpunched in these tastings by a more full-bodied version of the same grape.

With that said, both Siduri's rocked! For as much as I liked the Clos Pepe, the Cargasacci was even better. Now if I can just learn how to pronounce Peter's name......

Steve

And, i would just like to thank everyone for making the Saturday morning pinot drinking fest even that much better. Usually, on Saturday morning, I am downstairs, alone in my den at 9AM drinking pinot while watching the news. This was a much better venue.....

What a great group of people.


Steve

DJ, I got massive stink on the Siduri for about 20 minutes or so. During that time it was not a wine I would want to drink. Once the stink went away it was pretty good.

I was wrong. You all were right. But I just ran in to the hotel to pick up Tricia and posted from my .07% breathalized memory. The B/C pepe was fourth.

I asked Adam immediately after the tasting results came in what he was going to to now. "I'm going to Disneyworld" was his immediate answer.

Hey All! What an amazing event that was. Big "props" to all that brought it together! Not only was it a very very fun time...but extremely educational. As a "budding" vintner, it really is great to see events like this and get input/feedback from veteran palates! Amazing what knowledge you can walk away with...as long as ya spit a bit!

I must say it was great to be around old friends and a real pleasure to meet all the new faces...you know the faces behind the cyber names. Adam totally went out of his way to provide an event that was put on w/o a glitch...incredible generosity! Brian...you are just the man! Thanks again for setting up the showdown, iviting me along, and the Kosta Browne tour/tasting...fabuluous folk...fabulous wines! That '03 Kanzler (Sp) 667 is going to be one hot pinot!

Dinner was just amazing...hopefully someone can provide the list of wines we had...the memory faded that night! What a great weekend...everyone should live in California!

Brent...sorry everyone sucked up the barrel sample. It was the 2003 Garys' vineyard, one sample was free run and the other press wine. Next time its all yours! I guess the good thing about it disappearing quickly was that most enjoyed it...it was a bit nerve racking hitting in the big leagues!

Thanks for the notes! I need to get better about that!

Cheers All!
Andrew

First let me say thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone for putting on such an awesome event! Special thanks to Adam and the gang at Siduri from MadameNCVL and myself for creating an ideal atmosphere for tasting.

It was great to finally meet Brian live and in person and we're looking forward to seeing you again at Pisoni. We really enjoyed the Kosta Browne tour and tasting as well, and being able to see the caves in mid construction was especially interesting to me. Thanks again!

Andrew, dude, your wine rocked! wasn't it the free flow that we tried first? I know I'm on your mailing list, at least twice now Don't forget to give us a shout out if you need any help!

Thanks for the notes Brent and DavidN. The wines opened after the official tasting were of special interest as well. The Roar Gary's Vinyard was one of my favorites as well as the Carlisle Zin, but I think Siduri is labeling that under the Novy label. We also really enjoyed the Albino didn't see that one in your notes Brent.

Photos! Photos! Check out the first photos!

Clos Pepe Tasting Photos

Thanks for the photos, Brent. Wish I could have been there!