The Best for The Best 2005
Chicago NW Suburbs
Tasted Saturday, August 13, 2005 by GlenD with 1,522 views
Introduction
My best wines for our best friends.
Erik and Angela
Geoff and Kim
Ron and Tamara
Glen and Lisa
The plan for this evening started out as a dinner party at my house for my 40th birthday. My wife and I invited 3 more couples over to have a good meal and drink some good wine. But I quickly realized that these good people represented one of the greatest treasures in our lives. Family and friends are what life is really all about, and here were our closest friends in the world. They deserved the best, and we wanted to share it with them.
So, I spent a month or so thinking about the people attending, what they liked, what I own, what I wanted to try, and what was drinking well. The last item was the key factor. Some selections were obvious, some not so much, and at least one was an afterthought due to a tasting note I read on-line the day before. My cellar is made up primarily of wines in the cabernet, syrah, zinfandel triangle. Since I don't own hardly any Bordeaux, the wines came primarily from California and Australia, with a French and a Washington bottle thrown in for good measure.
I created flights or groups of 3 of the same varietal for comparison purposes. I thought that worked well, especially since there were a few cases where the wine I thought (ahead of time) would be the best in the flight came in third.
No one in the group is a wine geek like me, although everyone enjoys the good stuff and knows it when they see it. I asked everyone to try all of the wines, and vote for their top 3 wines of the evening after dinner. In my scoring system, 1st place = 3 points, 2nd = 2 pts, and 3rd = 1 pt. There were 13 bottles cracked from start to finish. By the way, everyone slept over.
Flight 1 - Whites (2 Notes)
Eventhough I don't drink much white anymore, I know several people in the group enjoy them a lot, so I pulled out 2 for a mini-flight. These were served with fruit and cheeses and a chili-cheese dip appetizer. The viognier was very popular, receiving a vote each for first place, second place and third place. It surprised the heck out of me. No decanting.
Flight 2 - Zinfandels (3 Notes)
These 3 were served alongside the whites with the cheeses and dip. All bottles were finished as everyone dug into the reds. Ron took my rack of lamb and made it into something amazing. It ended up being mustard and walnut crusted grilled lamb over spring greens with a home made red wine dressing. Raves from everyone. These were all poured into a decanter and then back into bottle right before serving.
Flight 3 - Merlot (1 Note)
Only one merlot tonight to recognize the preference of one of the guests (Erik). And what a merlot it was! Opened before dinner and then brought to the table.
Flight 4 - Shiraz (3 Notes)
The main course was marinated and grilled NY strips, aged cheddar twice baked potatoes, roasted tomatoes with fig balsamic vinegar and asparagus with olive oil and sea salt. We pulled the strips off the grill at just the right time. They were sliced on the bias, and all were nicely medium or medium rare.
Flight 5 - Cabernets (3 Notes)
The cabs were poured with dinner along with the shiraz and the merlot.
Flight 6 - Port (1 Note)
This was served with a divine chocolate mousse cheescake and coffee from my brand spankin' new French press.
Flight 7 - Recap:
What a great night. Wonderful wines enjoyed with wonderful people. I can't imagine better circumstances to drink grape juice. I'm pretty sure we'll have to do this every year!
The voting took place after dinner as we all sat outside on the patio around midnight. I realize now that I had a few problems adding up the scores that night (I wonder why?) and reported the results to the group incorrectly. Doh! I MUST make myself a scoring sheet to better tablulate the votes next time. There was a statistical tie for WOTN between the Factor and the 9. By my way of thinking, I give it to the Factor due to its higher score per voter.
Our neighbor gave us a call to let us know the music was a little too loud, so we moved back inside. Whoops. First place wines received 3 points in my system, second place was 2 points, and third place 1 point. The top wine in each flight emerged naturally on its own in the voting, except for a numerical tie in the Shiraz category. Boy, that was some good shiraz! Today, I scored them all on the 100 point system. Funny that the 92 point wines were "disappointments" of the evening.
Closing
10 points = 1st place
2000 Factor Shiraz (3+3+2+2)
2001 Marquis Phillips 9 Shiraz (2+1+1+2+3+1)
6 points = 2nd place
2004 Rosenblum Kathy's Cuvee Viognier (1+2+3)
2002 Pride Mountaintop Merlot (3+3)
5 points = 3rd place
2002 Carlisle Winery Carlisle Zinfande (2+2+1)l
1996 Ridge Monte Bello (3+2)
3 points = 4th place
2002 Neal Wykoff Cabernet (3)
1 point = 5th place
2002 Turley Pesenti Zinfandel (1)
2001 Amon-ra Barossa Shiraz (1)
1977 Fonseca Port (1)
0 points
1999 Louis Jadot Pouilly-Fussé
2003 Rosenblum Rockpile Vineyard
2002 Quilceda Creek
There was a suggestion for more diversity in the choices, as a lot of the wines were huge and in your face (which is what I like, so no surprise there). Next time, maybe some pinots? Probably a good thing that I left out the petite sirahs. At some point, there were so many wines open that it became difficult for most people to manage and compare. I really don't want to add another pinot flight of 3 more bottles, and I don't want to leave out the zins because I love them. Maybe skip the whites and do pinots instead? Well, I have about 11 months to think about it.
1999 Louis Jadot Pouilly-Fuissé 90 Points
France, Burgundy, Mâconnais, Pouilly-Fuissé
Dry flavors of citrus and minerals.
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2004 Rosenblum Cellars Kathy's Cuvée 92 Points
USA, California
Wonderful notes of honeysuckle, apricots and peaches. Floral and exotic. One of the favorite wines of the evening for my guests.
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