A few notes from the Heritage Blind Wine Tasting Finals in Las Vegas

Unfortunately Adrian had to cancel so I was the only one present to uphold the somewhat dubious honors of Wine Berserkers and The Formerly Known as Leo’s Blind Tasting Group and I pretty much crashed and burned with 150 points.

The Heritage folk did a fantastic job and the event was fun even if they were not choosing wines with my palate preferences in mind .


1982 Haut Brion Blanc
I forgot my second rule of blind tasting. If I have no idea what it is and am not particularly fond of it guess white Bordeaux. It was all right if you like that sort of thing but IMO pales next to the older Domaine de Chevalier whites I’ve had.

2014 Coche Dury Puligny Les Enseingeres
The strong matchstick nose immediately called Coche to mind and this was the only producer I correctly identified. Well meaning friends continue to inflict their wines on me. Please stop.

2011 Roumier Bonnes Mares
I am only a little embarrassed to admit I had no idea what this was. I remembered my first rule of blind tasting but was positive it wasn’t grenache. As hard as you would expect young Bonnes Mares to be and squarely in my do not touch age range for Burgundy. Not delivering a whole lot of pleasure yet.

1982 Chateau Petrus
This was one of the two glasses with which I could have spent all night. Magnificent. I guessed Latour, most people guessed Mouton. Only my second Petrus.

1968 Vega Sicilia Unico
Really very, very good and showing quite young. The winner correctly identified this wine but since I’ve only had Unico twice before (one of those times it was a corked bottle and the other was 20+ years ago) I had no idea. I wrote something random down.

1997 Harlan Estate
Much better than I would have expected had I seen the label beforehand. I guessed Dunn Howell Mountain due to the tannins which is a compliment in my book.

1996 Guigal La Turque Cote Rotie
Absolutely captivating nose. I could have smelled this all night. Generally the only wine other than older Chave which does that to me is Burgundy so I guessed DRC. Delicious as well but the nose was the star. Loved this.

1989 Rayas
Damn. I liked this too much to guess Chateauneuf even though I had no idea of what it was.


The Petrus and the Guigal were my clear favorites with the Rayas and the Vega in a clear second tier for me.

Some generous offerings at the BYO dinner which followed even if wasn’t the best audience for most of them (Pavie, SQN, …).

I can’t recommend the food at Jean Georges Steakhouse though service was excellent and we had a lovely private room. The steak was way oversalted, tough, not much beef flavor and on the medium side of medium rare rather than the rare I had ordered. Also, the caeser salad was served ice cold. I got the molten chocolate cake dessert as a tip of the hat to Jojo which originated it. That was very good though not as good as I remember it from all those years ago when I suppose it had the benefit of novelty.

The Aria hotel was nice enough though like all the area hotels it suffers from having lots of strange machines with flashing lights and beeping noises in the lobby. Not sure what that’s about. Dalek invasion?

Had a surprisingly good and unsurprisingly overpriced breakfast in the Aria Cafe.

Thanks for the notes, and the tale, Jay,

Was in Vegas last summer for the first time in 30 years, seemed to me an absolute hellhole, though it was summer. In any case, thanks for representing WB and the write-up.

Was the HBB just a stylistic dislike or was there something fundamentally not good about it? In my experience it’s a magical wine when on.

Stylistic dislike. With the notable exception of some older DDC whites I really don’t care for dry white Bordeaux. Most other people loved it.

Interestingly this was the second time I’ve had the wine. The last was about 20 years ago and my opinion hasn’t changed.

Fabulous line up. Would never have expected them to deliver such a rarefied group of wines. Thanks for the report.

Las Vegas is a weird city. The first time I was there 21 years ago my reaction was pretty much the same as this time. Strange place, interesting to have visited, no need to return. But I was able to do a flight over the Grand Canyon on this visit which was cancelled on me last time due to weather. So that came with a satisfying sense of closure.

Who won this year? Maybe an off night for the restaurant. I thought the food was very good at the dinner in 2017.

I don’t know if he’d want his name posted publicly but it was a podiatrist from LA. He was really good.

I cook much better steak than that. Though now that I recall there was an app before the salad that was very good. It was just the simple stuff they messed up on.

A guy from LA won in 2017 as well. I wonder if it’s the same guy. I came in second and he beat me by a good number if I recall correctly.

I seem to recall them saying he had won in a previous year so it probably is.

Yes… ‘twas me who won it.

Peter Nelson came in a close 2nd. I think he was 2nd in 2017 as well.

I thought the one wine that was off was the 1989 Rayas. It smelled like manure and barnyard and did not have the classics Rayas perfume, as I like to call it.
The 1982 Petrus was amazing as was the 1968 Unico. The 2011 Roumier Bonnes Mares is ridiculously overpriced.

Service was absolutely top notch, and that means more to me than the food, especially for an evening such as this.

A special thanks to Frank Martell, Amanda Crawford, and Heritage Auctions ExecVP Todd Imhof for putting on this great event.

Good times Jay! Was great to meet you and chat for a bit. Hope to see you back there next year.

-Dave

Well done Dave!