Some of you followed the Rhone trip I wrote about last year (Northern Rhone Tour: Clusel-Roch, Jamet, Perret, Gonon, Sorrel, Cave de Tain, Clape, Allemand - WINE TALK - WineBerserkers). As a kind of celebration of that trip, Paul and Jackie Gordon organized a tasting of the wines from most of the producers we visited, and the California producers on the trip, with a couple of new additions. We had 16 tasters in all, a mix of winemakers and wine writers from several well-known publications:
Paul and Jackie Gordon (Halcon)
Bob Lindquist (Qupe)
Pax Mahle (Wind Gap, Pax)
Bradley Brown and Brad Friedman (Big Basin)
Adam Tolmach (Ojai)
Michael McCullough (in place of Jason for Drew Family)
Patrick Comiskey (Wine and Spirits, LA Times, and a plug for his new book American RhĂ´ne: How Maverick Winemakers Changed the Way Americans Drink)
William Kelley (Decanter)
Esther Mobley (San Francisco Chronicle)
Mike Dunne (Sacramento Bee)
Jim Gordon (Wine Enthusiast)
Cyrus LimĂłn (solosyrah.wordpress.com)
Chuck Furuya (Master Sommelier, in from Hawaii)
Myself (humble scribe and scorekeeper)
Hillside Supper Club in San Francisco did a fantastic job of handling the wines for us (two bottles of each, opened on site, blended into magnum bottles), numbering, and pouring for the entire table.
We tasted in two flights of six, then ranked 1-12. Everyone also wrote down their guesses of the origin (Cali or France). The wines were:
Flight 1
2013 Drew Mendocino Ridge Perli Vineyard
2013 Andre Perret Saint-Joseph Les Grisieres
2012 Jamet CĂ´te-RĂ´tie
2013 Wind Gap Nellessen Vineyard Sonoma Coast
2013 Big Basin Rattlesnake Rock Santa Cruz Mountains
2013 Clape Cornas
Flight 2
2013 Halcon Alturas Yorkville Highlands
2013 Gonon Saint-Joseph
2013 Ojai Santa Maria Solomon Hills “Special Bottling”
2012 Clusel-Roch Vialliere CĂ´te-RĂ´tie
2012 Allemand Cornas Chaillots
2012 Qupe Sawyer-Lindquist Edna Valley
I have to say, this was a bit humbling. And frankly, it was a bit of a shame to have to “rank” the wines. These are all stars in their own right, every one of them a bottle I would happily spend the evening with. But we can’t call ourselves proper Americans if we don’t score things, haha. Below are the wines, in order of how the group ranked them, with my own notes and rankings (note that my scores correlated least with the group average, at 0.1, so take my notes with a grain of salt). It’s also fun to see what continent the group thought each wine was from:
1. 2013 Wind Gap Nellessen Vineyard Sonoma Coast
Deep crushed fruit nose, reserved, very rich, deep boysenberry/blackberry fruit, good acidity, very intense, I thought this might be Qupe (my #7, group #1, 7 votes Cali, 8 votes France)
2. 2013 Halcon Alturas Yorkville Highlands
Somewhat reserved nose, slightly meaty, rich, opulent, bright boysenberry, very tasty. I thought this might be Ojai (my #9, tied for group #1, tiebreaker goes to Wind Gap, 13 votes Cali, 2 votes France)
3. 2012 Jamet CĂ´te-RĂ´tie
Slightly lighter, has a riper, sweet note, comes across a bit simple (my #11, group #3, 6 votes Cali, 9 votes France). This definitely changed and improved over time, showing better at the end of the evening.
4. 2013 Gonon Saint-Joseph
Lovely perfumed nose, tasty, vibrant, deep boysenberry/pomegranate, great acidity, Allemand-like. I forgot there was actually an Allemand in the lineup, otherwise I would have guessed this one. I thought it might be Clape (my #1, group #4, 1 vote Cali, 14 votes France)
5. 2013 Drew Mendocino Ridge Perli Vineyard
Deep crushed fruit nose, quite rich, deep boysenberry/blackberry, excellent acidity, fine structure, beautiful wine (my #6, group #5, 7 votes Cali, 8 votes France)
6. 2013 Andre Perret Saint-Joseph Les Grisieres
Dusty, nettle nose (stems?), nice medium reserved dark blackberry/pomegranate fruit, good acidity, very nice (my #4, group #6, 2 votes Cali, 13 votes France)
7. 2013 Ojai Santa Maria Solomon Hills “Special Bottling”
Bit of ripeness, slight sweeter edge in contrast to other wines, bright boysenberry/blackberry, some oak? great depth, intense and complex. Beautiful wine. I thought this could be Clusel-Roch. (my #2, group #7, 10 votes Cali, 5 votes France)
8. 2012 Allemand Cornas Chaillots
A bit lighter, more elegant in this lineup, with more of a blueberry note than the other wines. Very nice, but somewhat a wall flower here. (my #8, group #8, 4 votes Cali, 11 votes France)
9. 2012 Clusel-Roch Vialliere CĂ´te-RĂ´tie
Quite rich, decent acidity, showing a bit one-dimensional at the moment, but still a nice wine (my #10, group #10, 8 votes Cali, 7 votes France)
10. 2013 Big Basin Rattlesnake Rock Santa Cruz Mountains
Slightly riper dark crushed fruit nose, fairly rich, intense dark blackberry/pomegranate, fine structure, medium acidity. (my #5, group #10, 8 votes Cali, 7 votes France)
11. 2012 Qupe Sawyer-Lindquist Edna Valley
Dark fruit, apparent oak, good balance. I think the wines at the end of the second flight are starting to suffer a bit from being last to taste. (my #12, group #11, 11 votes Cali, 4 votes France)
12. 2013 Clape Cornas
Gorgeous medium intensity, spice, complex, really beautiful wine. I thought this might be Clape, maybe Clusel (but I thought the Clusel we were tasting was Grandes Places, not Vialliere). (my #3, group # 11, 13 votes Cali, 2 votes France)
Edited to make this addition: To have a little fun, we scored the wines based on just the professional writers rankings, and then with everyone included. It was pointed out to me that the rankings I posted above are for the writers. So for clarity, here are the rankings based on everyone at the dinner. First 5 didn’t change, a bit of reordering in the second half of the rankings:
- 2013 Wind Gap Nellessen Vineyard Sonoma Coast
- 2013 Halcon Alturas Yorkville Highlands
- 2012 Jamet CĂ´te-RĂ´tie
- 2013 Gonon Saint-Joseph
- 2013 Drew Mendocino Ridge Perli Vineyard
- 2013 Ojai Santa Maria Solomon Hills “Special Bottling”
- 2013 Andre Perret Saint-Joseph Les Grisieres
- 2013 Big Basin Rattlesnake Rock Santa Cruz Mountains
- 2012 Allemand Cornas Chaillots
- 2012 Clusel-Roch Vialliere CĂ´te-RĂ´tie
- 2013 Clape Cornas
- 2012 Qupe Sawyer-Lindquist Edna Valley
The California/France comparison was very interesting. A few wines (Drew, Jamet, Wind Gap, Big Basin, Clusel) were fairly evenly split in terms of guesses, while others (Peret, Halcon, Gonon, Ojai, Allemand, Qupe) were pegged pretty well. Only the Clape was guessed incorrectly by most of the group. Good news was that no one got less than 6 right, with 6 tasters getting 8 right, and two (Pax and Jim Gordon) the champions with 10.
A really fun evening, the result of a ton of work by Paul and Jackie in getting everyone invited, finding a suitable date and venue, acquiring all of the wines, and making it all happen. Many thanks to both of them for that, and for including me.