Master New Year's Eve wines tasting notes

First, to everyone, have a happy and healthy new year.

We had over some people who like wine but are certainly not wine geeks and don’t know that much about it.

We started with a Bérêche et Fils Champagne Brut Réserve. It was good, but not as good as a lot of wines I have had from Bereche. Nothing wrong with it, just did not have enough to it.

We had beef short ribs for dinner. Served with it 1986 l’Arrosee, 2001 Ridge Home Ranch and 2004 Sociando Mallet. Interestingly, I thought that from a quality standpoint there was not that much difference between the three wines - all were very good. From a more stylistic point of view, the Ridge and the Sociando were actually closer than the l’Arrosee was to either. I think that this is largely because of the age difference in the wines. The Ridge and Sociando showed a good bit more fruit, while the l’Arrosee showed more of the complex flavors that come with age. I probably preferred the l’Arrosee of the three, but I think it would have been the third favorite of most of the people there. The Sociando probably also was a bit young and I will probably not open my other bottles of this for a few years.

We finished with a 2012 Gunderloch Messidor Beerenauslese. I thought this was a bit disappointing. Rich and sweet, but not enough complexity or acidity.