Col vs. VA Wine Taste-Off Recap

The Rematch – The second Colorado vs. Virginia Wine Taste-Off went down on August 24^th at Bonacquisti Winery in Denver, CO.  The first Colorado-Virginia taste-off in March featured the red wines of each state and ended in a draw.  For our second meeting our theme was ‘Summer Wines’ of Colorado and Virginia.

The intent of this tasting was not to declare one state’s wines better than the other, but rather to taste wines from two states with little nationwide distribution and to showcase wines that rarely receive ‘out-of-state’ attention they each deserve. Mission accomplished!  A good time was had by all, and each state’s wines picked up a few new fans.

Group at the table at the end of flight 1. Jacob Harkins, Bruce Shoenfeld, Frank Morgan, Brandy Manix, Shari Caudron not pictured. (Photos courtesy of Greg Tally of Colorado Wine Country Inn.)

A HUGE THANK YOU to the Virginia Wine Board Marketing Office and to each winery that supported the Colorado – Virginia wine events last week. I was humbled by the overwhelming response from Virginia wineries:

• Boxwood Winery
• Gadino Cellars
• Philip Carter Winery
• Lovingston Winery
• Hillsborough Vineyards
• Chateau Morrisette
• Keswick Vineyards
• Sunset Hills Vineyard
• White Hall Vineyards
• Horton Vineyards
• Afton Mountain Vineyards
• Lake Anna Winery
• Barboursville Vineyards
• Delfosse Vineyards and Winery
• Kluge Estate (Albemarle)
• Veramar Vineyard
• Bogati Bodega & Vineyard

Round 1 of ‘Virginia Wine in Colorado’ was held Bonacquisti Winery in Denver’s Winery Row, and included six flights:

• Rosé
• Sauvignon Blanc
• Chardonnay (oaked)
• Chardonnay (unoaked)
• Viognier
• White blend/Open White

Each of the six flights were tasted blind and scored by a panel of five judges – Jake Harkins from Colorado Wino, Bruce Shoenfeld, Wine & Spirits Editor at Travel & Leisure Magazine, Brandi Manix of the International Wine Guild, Shari Caudron from 5280 Magazine, and me.  Also in attendance were several winemakers, winery folks, and friends.

Scoring was based on a ranking system wherein judges scored each wine, then ranked their favorite wines in ascending order for each flight.  I prefer this ‘ranking system’ to the ‘traditional’ point rating scales – 100 point rating system and the 20-point Davis system – to avoid high/low-scoring anomalies.  At the end of each flight, the rankings were tallied and the wines were unbagged.

Given the number of wines in the overall lineup, I decided to break the Colorado trip in to two different tastings.  Not only was this the most practical option in terms of time, this would ensure a maximum number of people would be introduced to Virginia wine.  For round 1 – the blind tasting, we started with the Rosé, then worked our way through the varietal whites and finished with the white blends/open flight.

BLIND TASTING RESULTS
Rosé Flight:
Winner – Kluge Estate Albemarle rosé 2009
Frank’s top scorer – Boxwood rosé (Boxwood finished #2 in overall scoring)
Jake’s top scorer – Kluge Estate Albemarle rosé 2009

Rose flight top 4 after scores were announced.

Sauvignon Blanc
 Flight:
Winner – Barboursville 2009 Sauvignon Blanc
Frank’s top scorer – Barboursville 2009
Jakes’s top scorer – Bonacquisti Wine Co. 2008

Chardonnay (unoaked)
 Flight
Winner – Afton Mountain steel 2009
Frank’s top scorer – Afton Mountain steel 2009
Jakes’s top scorer – Whitewater Hill 2009

Unoaked Chardonnay top 4 after unbagging.

Chardonnay (oaked)
 Flight:
Winner - Settembre Cellars 2009
Chardonnay
Frank’s top scorer – Philip Carter 2009 Chardonnay
Jacob’s top scorer – Boulder Creek Cellars 2009

Oaked Chardonnay flight top 4.

Viognier Flight:
Winner – Creekside Cellars 2009
(This wine was bottled shortly before this tasting and showed exceptionally well.)
Frank’s top scorer – Keswick Vineyards 2009 / Gadino Cellars 2009
Jacob’s top scorer – Creekside Cellars 2009
Scoring for this flight ended in a tie between Creekside Cellars and Keswick Vineyards.  To break the tie, our host for the tasting, Paul Bonacquisti, tasted each wine blind to choose the winner – he selected bag #1 which turned out to be the Creekside Cellars Viognier. Good call, as the Creekside Cellars was an excellent offering.

Viognier flight after unveiling (in random order).

Wild Card White Flight:
Winner – Horton Vineyards 2009 Petit Manseng
Frank’s top scorer – Lovingston Vineyards 2009 White
Jacob’s top scorer – Garrett Estate Cellars 2009 Pinot Gris

In looking at my personal tasting results, I clearly have home-state palate bias as Virginia wine was at the top of my ranking for five of the six flights. I must admit that I expected more from the Viognier flight – from both sides. Coming in to this tasting, I noted in several emails to Jake how amazing Virginia Viogniers are, and I fully expected the Virginia juice to dominate this flight.  Unfortunately, this was not the case as several of the wines in this flight were uncharacteristically disjointed and not showing well.

The surprise flight of the tasting was the oaked Chardonnay flight, which turned out to be my favorite flight of the evening.  I’m usually not a fan of oaked Chardonnay, but was impressed by the complexity and balance of each of the contenders in this flight, especially Colorado’s Settembre Cellars Chardonnay and Virginia’s Philip Carter Chardonnay.  I’m embarrassed to admit this was my first time tasting the Philip Carter Chardonnay (sorry, I’m a bad Virginian ).

Although Virginia wine won four of the six flights, both states came out as winners in this event.

Takeaways from the tasting:

1. Virginia wineries are incredibly supportive and eager to spread the word about wines of the Commonwealth. I’m grateful, thank you!
2. Virginia does have a distinguishable terroir that is very evident in white wines in a 1-on-1 comparison tasting with wines from another region (same observation as prior tasting as well).
3. Both Colorado and Virginia are turning out some great juice.

Lesson Learned: Plan, and then plan some more. Confirm, and then reconfirm wineries participating in the tasting.  The list of wineries participating was in a constant state of change – two of the wineries that expressed interest in being included in the Colorado tasting were not able to ship wine, and two others that I had not expected to participate did send wine.  One box arrived the afternoon of the tasting, and another unfortunately was set-aside at the winery and wasn’t shipped until the day of the tasting (which was recalled once this was realized).  As wines arrived in Denver (or at my house), I ‘attempted’ to match the Virginia wines for the blind tasting based on the entries from Colorado.

I would like to thank each of my fellow judges and attendees who joined us for this tasting, and especially to Paul Bonacquisti for opening his winery again for us, and to Jacob Harkins who pulled this all together.

For ‘Virginia-Colorado Round 2,’ I teamed up with Barbara Kiebel who manages the Denver Wine Meetup group to present Virginia wines to an enthusiastic group of Coloradoans.  Known to most on Twitter as VinoLuci, Barb pulled together a great group of tasters including a bloggers, a Sommelier, B&B owner, and several other wine enthusiasts.  Recap of Round 2 coming Friday…

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Questions, Comments, Complaints, Random Observations? Contact Me Here

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Virginia wine line up for round 2.

Some things about Colorado can not be matched. View near Deer Creek area.

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On the Va Wine Trail with the First Lady

I recently had the opportunity to spend the day with First Lady of Virginia, Maureen McDonnell, Secretary of Agriculture Todd Haymore, Annette Boyd and Amy Ciarametaro of the Virginia Wine Board Marketing Office as part of a Central Virginia winery tour for the wine trade.

I was very honored to have been invited to be included in this event with the First Lady.  Joining me were members of the press, restaurant owners, Virginia Wine Lover Magazine Editor Patrick Evans-Hylton, and my friend and fellow wine blogger, John Witherspoon of Anything Wine.

This Virginia wine trade tour is part of the First Lady’s Initiatives Team Effort (FLITE) that recognizes programs, activities, organizations, or individuals who embody the ideal of “getting involved and giving back.”  Its purpose is to bring attention to the great work being done by selfless people around the Commonwealth who are taking the opportunity to leave Virginia a better place than they found it.  One of the four focal points of FLITE is promoting and growing the Virginia wine industry.

Governor McDonnell’s recent approval of doubling the Virginia Wine Board’s budget coupled with the First Lady’s organization of and participation in this Virginia wine trade tour are great examples of matching words with action.  This level of commitment to promoting Virginia wine and growing the Virginia wine industry is exciting for those of us who are passionate about our states wine.  Wine Bloggers Conference 2011 attendees take note!

I was impressed with the First Lady and her proactive approach to supporting, promoting and learning about Virginia wine.  I can only imagine that her calendar is extremely packed; yet she took an entire day out of her schedule for this first of three Virginia wine trade tours. The second and third legs of the First Lady’s winery tour take place this week in Loudoun County area with scheduled visits to Breaux Vineyards, Philip Carter Winery, Tarara Vineyards, Pearmund Cellars, Rappahannock Cellars and Chrysalis Vineyards.

The day started with breakfast at the Governor’s Mansion in Richmond, Virginia.  After breakfast and an impromptu tour of the downstairs of the Governor’s mansion, the First Lady, Todd Haymore, and the rest of the group boarded the bus en route to Charlottesville.  On the ride to Charlottesville our group had the chance to chat with the First Lady and Secretary of Agriculture and watch a preview of the forthcoming PBS documentary, VINTAGE, which tells the story of the Virginia wine industry.

Our group on steps of Virginia Governor's Mansion.

Our first stop of the day was Jefferson Vineyards – known for growing grapes on the original vineyard sites from Thomas Jefferson, which were originally planted in 1774 just one mile away from Monticello. Upon arriving our delegation was greeted by Jefferson Vineyards General Manager, Chad Zakaib, and winemaker Andy Reagan.  Both Chad and Andy provided our group with an insightful overview of Jefferson Vineyards and led us through a tasting of each of their current releases. My favorite of the tasting was definitely the 2009 Viognier – awesome.

Jefferson Vineyards General Manager, Chad Zakaib, and First Lady.

The next stop on the tour was Veritas Vineyards and Winery located in scenic Afton, Virginia.  Veritas owners, Andrew and Patricia Hodson, and their daughter and winemaker Emily Pelton greeted our group upon arriving.  Emily led our group through a tasting of Veritas’ current releases and then provided our group with a delicious meal paired with Veritas wines.  No doubt, the standout wine that afternoon was the 2009 Veritas Sauvignon Blanc – fresh and lively tropical fruit with racing acidity. If you haven’t visited, be sure to add Veritas to your ‘must visit’ list as this is one of the most beautiful wineries in the state.

Andrew Hodson providing tour of Veritas.

Veritas Winemaker, Emily Pelton, and me.

First Lady with the Hodsons.

View from the loft at Veritas - First Lady preparing for an interview with local television station.

Our final stop of the afternoon was Whitehall Vineyards – another example of the beauty of Virginia’s scenery.  Our group was greeted warmly by the Champ family and provided a tasting and tour of their winery.  My favorite of the tasting was the Cab Franc.

Lisa Champ presenting the First Lady with a bottle of Whitehall wine.

A special thank you to First Lady, Maureen McDonnell, to the First Lady’s office, the Virginia Wine Board Marketing Office and to three of Virginia’s most hospitable wineries – Veritas, Whitehall, Jefferson – for a great day!

The First Lady of Virginia with famous wine blogger Frank Morgan.

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Beaujolais Head-to-Head Taste Live Recap

*Disclaimer: I received the four Beaujolais wines as samples to participate in this Taste Live event.

Last week I had the chance to participate in a Taste Live event organized by Creative Furnace, Social Media Group, and Discover Beaujolais featuring wines of the Beaujolais region of France .

For those unfamiliar with the concept, the Taste Live format provides an opportunity for a group of wine bloggers throughout the US to taste the same wines and share their tasting notes and thoughts live via Twitter.

Normally, a Taste Live event includes two to four wines from one producer tasted in succession from lightest to heaviest.  This particular Taste Live format was setup as a head-to-head comparative tasting of two Beaujolais classifications – Beaujolais –Village versus Moulin-A-Vent (one of the 10 Crus of Beaujolais).

Unfortunately, many excellent Beaujolais wines suffer from ‘guilt by association’ syndrome because of Beaujolais Nouveau – that very young, poor quality juice with the bright, flowery labels intended to appeal to impulse (label) buyers each November (3^rd Thursday).

A Beaujolais Primer: Gamay is the predominate grape of the Beaujolais region and is typically fresh, fruity, easy drinking and uncomplicated.  The Beaujolais area is only 34 miles from North to South and 8 miles wide but produces millions of cases of wine (much of that in the form of Nouveau).  Beaujolais is sometimes considered a reasonable economical alternative to Burgundy. There are four ‘types’ or classifications of Beaujolais (from lowest to highest quality):

• Beaujolais Nouveau: Released very young third Thursday of November.
• Beaujolais: Can come from grapes grown anywhere in the Beaujolais region.
• Beaujolais-Villages: These wines are made from grapes grown in thirty-nine villages in the center of the Beaujolais region.
• Cru Beaujolais: This is the northern part of the Beaujolais region and is home to ten hillside villages that produce the regions best wines.

Although the number of Twitter participants seemed lower than normal, a lot of great information and tasting notes were shared via Twitter.  To join us in the tasting, we invited our friends Rob and Jen over to help us work on the four bottles.

The tasting line up. Photo by Rob Cordosi.

A few general tweets of interest before/during the tasting:

Some Bojo facts – 38% of production is Nouveau, 12% Villages and almost 34% Cru now #Beaujolais   ~ @DiscoverBojo

The Moulin a Vent wines are vinified the same as a Burgundy Pinot Noir from a few miles to the north. #Beaujolais  ~ @DiscoverBojo

Cru Beaujolais in general – approachable, friendly, fruity, low tannins, and high acidity.  ~ @DrinkWhatULike

Our group started with the George Duboeuf 2009 Beaujolais-Villages ($12).  The 2009 vintage is supposed to be ‘the’ epic year in Beaujolais, but this particular Village wine didn’t reflect the awesomeness of the ’09 vintage (just my opinion).  Thoughts on this wine from the live #ttl and #beaujolais stream:

NOW for the 07 DeBoeuf Garnet color  ~ @BrixChick_Liza

@DiscoverBojo Wow. Going back to the Duboeuf B-V is like drinking fresh strawberry juice. SO different from the Cru wines. #beaujolais  ~ @lenndevours

Deboeuf ’09 B-Vill – seems ‘flat/one dimensional’ … hmm…  #TTL ~ @DrinkWhatULike

We quickly moved on to one of my favorite value wine producers – Louis Jadot 2009 Beaujolais-Villages ($13).  I’ve had several vintages of this wine and enjoyed them, especially the 2008.  The Louis-Jadot 2008 Beaujolais-Village serves as our current ‘house wine’ because of the excellent QPR, consistency and enjoyability factor.

#ttl #beaujolais #bojo 09 Jadot BV Lovely Garnet color. Interesting shifting nose of coconut, red fruit, etc  ~ @BrixChick_Liza

#Beaujolais 2009 Beau.Village Jadot – summer fruit nose – tart fruit on the palate – Carbonic Maceration?   ~ @brixchik_xan

Louis-Jadot 09 B-Vill – like it, violets, hints of cherry and spice, rocks/mineral, nice acidity #TTL ~ @DrinkWhatULike

Ok – so we’ve build a strong consensus for 2009 Jadot as the winner for the Villages flight #Beaujolais ~@DiscoverBojo

Moving from the lighter Beaujolais-Village to the more complex wines of Moulin-a-Vent – Georges Duboeuf 2007 Domaine de la Tour du Bief from Moulin-à-Vent ($17).

Deboeuf ’07 Moulin-A-Vent – first impression stinky cheese or locker(?). #TTL ~ @DrinkWhatULike

For me the 07 Georges Duboeuf Moulin-A-Vent was the stand out. #TTL #Beaujolais #Bojo  ~ @MelissaDobson

#Beaujolais 2007 Duboeuf M-A-V -very earthy with brett, thin on palate; I want more acidic oomph. ~ @brixchik_xan

07 deBoeuf The Flavor says Old World..whispery tannins and an acidity like a back talking teenager WHooo! ~ @BrixChick_Liza

Pouring the Duboeuf 07 Moulin-a-Vent: Savory spice notes and cocoa powder over dark berry — cherry and blkberry. Really savory #beaujolais ~ @Lenndevours

Deboeuf ’07 Moulin-A-Vent – stinky seems to be blowing off, getting strawberry – would have expected darker fruit #TTL  ~ @DrinkWhatULike

The final wine of the tasting was the Louis Jadot 2007 Château des Jacques Moulin-à-Vent ($19).

Jadot ’07 Moulin-A-Vent – Nice, aromas of spice, pepper, some dark fruit. Get mineral finish #TTL ~ @DrinkWhatULike

#Beaujolais 2007 Jadot M-A-V – yummy smooth palate, well-balanced, spice on nose with fruit. my fave ~ @brixchik_xan

Jadot ’07 Moulin-A-Vent: light-bodied, elegant, alcohol more subtle. Nice finish. #TTL #Bojo #Beaujolais  ~ @MelissaDobson

The clear standout of the tasting for our group was the Louis-Jadot 2009 Beaujolais-Village – another great example of the solid QPR wines coming out of Beaujolais.  If they ‘case discount’ retail price is lower than $10/bottle, this one could be our house wine for fall.

As always, Taste Live was a fun, fast-paced, enjoyable event.  A big thanks to Cailyn and Hasdeep for organizing this event – and to Rob and Jen for coming over, chatting, eating our food, drinking this wine, and taking photos.

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On Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Wine and Changing Direction

When I started this blog over 2 years ago, I did so for (mostly) selfish reasons – to learn more about wine, meet fellow wine enthusiasts, to chronicle my wine travels, and to bring order to my tasting notes for future reference. This site has met its intended purpose – I’ve learned a great deal about wine in the last two years writing about the subject, met a lot of great people, and have brought some order to my tasting notes. Since my previous wine tasting note system consisted of sticky notes, multiple notebooks, and random scraps of papers, improvement wasn’t difficult.

Even with all the benefits I’ve realized since starting DrinkWhatYouLike in June 2008, I’ve become bored with blogging… very bored! I believe my chronic boredom may be a consequence of my ADD infused personality, which has been exacerbated by tools like Twitter. In looking back over the last two years, my posting can best be defined as erratic, and my topics of choice are all over the place – which mirrors my range of interests I guess. So, I’m making a change here at the site… a change in format to more suit my current interests.

First, I’m abandoning the goal of ‘attempting’ to chronicle my travel wine experiences – this is ridiculous and holds no appeal to me. I travel way too much and am too numb to travel these days to even think about trying to capture my ‘on the road’ wine experiences. I’ll leave this to my Twitter account. I’ve recently spent time in Toronto, Brussels, Berlin and Paris and couldn’t muster the attention span to craft even one summary post for these trips. My lack of desire to chronicle the details of my wine experiences on these trips resulted in a big ‘ol Bill Engvall ‘Here’s Your Sign’ moment. (The only exception will be a post on my upcoming trip to Sonoma/Napa where I’m organizing a Virginia Wine Tasting for my california wine blogging friends.)

Although I have suffered from boredom and a lack of ‘posting motivation’ in the last two months, I have devoted extended periods of attention to reading two lengthy books on Thomas Jefferson (in addition to attempting to finish DFW’s Infinite Jest)  and am working on a third, and spent time at over a dozen Virginia wineries. This is where my interest lies.

To that end, I’m going with what holds my attention for now – Thomas Jefferson and Virginia wine. I am working on two different month-long series here at Drink What You Like – ’30 Days of Thomas Jefferson on Wine’ and ‘31 Days of Virginia Wine’ that will begin on September 1 and run daily through October 31.

The month of September will feature ‘30 Days of Thomas Jefferson on Wine.’   Thomas Jefferson is considered by many ‘The’ Homo Universalis (aka – ‘man of the world’ or ‘Renaissance Man’) of his time – well educated, achiever, husband, father, US President, architect, statesmen, inventor, lawyer, oenophile, reader, thinker, and violinist among others things. Many consider Jefferson the da Vinci of the 18th century. Not sure I fully agree with that comparison. Instead, I consider Jefferson more of ‘The Great Enigma’ – a fascinating, complex, and difficult to understand individual.

Although I have had a great time learning about all aspects of Jefferson’s life, my primary interest as it relates to this site is to explore his adventures and experiences with wine and share them with those who may read this site – so the ’30 Days of Jefferson on Wine’ will focus on Jefferson and wine (and a little cider and beer thrown in as well) with minimal narrative on his political and other lives. A few of the topics I plan to explore as part of this daily series include:

• A detailed look at his five years in Paris
• Trials and tribulations of growing grapes in Virginia
• Jefferson’s favorite wines
• Wine cellar at Monticello
• Stay in Champagne (Eperney)
• Wine influence on his fellow colonials
• Travels through Italy and Germany
• Meticulous wine record keeping
• Cider and beer
• The Billionaire’s Vinegar (book by Benjamin Wallace)
• … and random Jefferson wine facts.

October will be Virginia Wine Month – ‘31 Days of Virginia Wine.’  Following the ‘30 Days of Jefferson on Wine’ in September, October 1 will mark the beginning of ’31 Days of Virginia Wine’ to celebrate Virginia Wine Month. This series will run daily from October 1 through 31 and will feature analysis of Virginia wine trends, winemaker interviews, wine trail features, and Virginia wine reviews. Perhaps this will serve as a valuable resource for those bloggers planning to attend the 2011 Wine Bloggers Conference in Charlottesville, VA.

I hope that you will join me on this 61-day journey of education and exploration in to the wine life of one of our founding fathers and the wine industry he helped created. Thank you!

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