We had some friends over for dinner/NYE celebration yesterday and enjoyed some great wine! Here is what we had...To whet our appetite with cheese and other morsels, we started with:
2001 Freemark Abbey Cabernet Sauvignon Bosche VineyardThe suggested wine varietal for the tasting was Chateauneuf-du-Pape. As a group, we haven't had much French wine experience (Napa and Sonoma are too close to ignore!), so we decided to expand our horizons. I planted a decoy in the mix just for fun. After the tasting, we tallied up the scores and came up with this ordering:
5. 2005 Gilles Barge Cote-Rotie Cuvee du Plessy - this one seemed to be tainted
4. 2000 Chateau Laroque - my favorite!
3. 2005 Orin Swift The Prisoner - the decoy
2. 2004 Patrick Lesec Chateauneuf-du-Pape Chasse Temps - #1 for 3 tasters
1. 2003 Chateau La Nerthe Chateauneuf-du-Pape - #1 for 5 tasters
(Note that CdP was hard to fine on short notice...so other French wines were substituted.)We enjoyed the rest of the wine with dinner (chicken, pasta, seafood gumbo) and also opened up four more bottles:
2002 Sterling Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon ReserveAnd for the New Year's toast, we opened up some champagne:
2000 Pierre Gaillard Cote Rotie Cote Rozier
2005 Simi Dry Creek Valley Late Harvest Zinfandel
2005 Mount Palomar Chardonnay Solanus Late Harvest
N.V. Marcel Hemard Champagne ORIGINEHappy New Year to all!!!
N.V. Charles Heidsieck Champagne Brut Reserve
N.V. Jeanmarie Champagne Cuvee Brut
1 comment:
I recently did a wine tasting but not blind...I like that idea. I definitely think some people lobbied for their particular wines in order to win the fabulous (naturally) prizes. A much belated, but still sincere, happy new year! Hopefully we'll catch up again one of these days...
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