29. February 2008 by Sebastien Gavillet.

Two blind tasting in one day is almost too good to be true. 

Willy S. of Aureole, Las Vegas organizes every other Tuesday night a blind wine tasting session for industry people. The tasting is composed mostly of sommeliers or MS, wine buyers and aficionados. The formula is pretty simple, a new venue for each tasting, and one type of grape varietal or wine style.  Each participant must bring a bottle of the selected varietal or style. This particular event was hosted at the Vox Wine Lounge in Henderson, NV. Patrick Pretz, Vox’s sommelier was the host of this event and we owe him a great thank you for his wonderful hospitality.

This is the first time I participated in this style of tasting.  I have participated in numerous blind tastings before; where we would share notes once we had finished examining the wines.  Unlike regular blind tastings, here, each participant plays a distinct role examining, describing, and analyzing only one aspect of the wine.  From there the next taster moves on to the next aspect of the wine.  The participants each take turns critiquing a specific aspect of the wine, from color, nose (aromas & bouquet), taste (aromas), structure, assessing where the wine comes from, the vintage and finally its producer. 

This might all sound complicated, but is actually very entertaining and you learn abundantly when working in a group, sharing a wealth of knowledge.  To show my point, out of the 14 wines sampled, the group was able to pinpoint 95% of the wine geographically.  Of those 95%, 50% to a region or area, 20% to an AOC or AVA and 15% to the actual producer.  60% of the time, the vintage was correct.  The only 2 wines we failed to place were a Pinot Noir Cava (sparkling wine) from Argentina and a Pinot Noir from the Loire Valley in France.  This further validates my opinion that one always learn more about a wine’s characteristics when discussing it openly with other tasters.  The next tasting will be hosted on Tuesday March 11^th, 2008 at Marche Bacchus in Summerlin.  The grape varietal for the tasting will be Chardonnay, and the wine can come from anywhere in the world.  Be creative and bring something everyone can enjoy. Cheers!

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29. February 2008 by Sebastien Gavillet.

Nevada Wine Agents presented a California blind tasting at Company American Bistro, located inside the Luxor Hotel, Las Vegas.  What a beautiful location and my compliments to the chef on preparing us such mouth watering hors d’oeuvres.  Dieberg & Star Lane Vineyards organized the event, featuring 5 well known Californian Cabernets. The purpose of this tasting was of course to promote their wines and show that their wines can stand up against some of California’s most “reputed” wineries.With about 20 sommeliers and wine industry tasters participating, the Star Lane Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, ranked 2^nd. Hourglass Cabernet 2004 ranked 1^st, Caymus 2003 ranked 3^rd, 100 Acres 2004 ranked 4^th and Opus One 2003 ranked 5^th.  On a price/quality ranking, Star Lane ranked 1^st.  At a third of the price of the other wines tasted, the Star Lane Cabernet Sauvignon makes for a great buy.  Now on a more personal level, when blind tastings are performed to compare wine of the same varietal and region, I like to see a more horizontal tasting.  All of the wine featured should have been of the same year as Star Lane’s or 2005 in my opinion.

Cheers!

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