USA...USA Tasting

Been a while for our drinking crew to have a structured themed tasting that doesn’t involve copious amounts Burgundy in some form. We decided to go with a US themed tasting, admittedly what we have access to here in Australia is fairly limited so it took a few reverse expats and people with some connections and some with deep pockets to get some of the wines available. As you know in Australia we are basically back to normal in terms of Covid so meetups and get togethers are fine.

I think there were 12 of us in the end, we kept to the theme for food as well, with pulled pork sliders, chicken sliders, buffalo wings, brisket and hot dogs by the truck load and even a slice of hot cherry pie to round off proceedings. All eaten over about an 8-9 hour window from a 2pm start. With The Boss, The Bob, Van Halen, Johnny Cash, John Denver all making appearances on the boom box.

I’ll be honest in saying that I was expecting some bloated, big wines, for the most part I couldn’t have been more wrong. Some fantastic wines, covering all parts of the spectrum, leaner, lighter, heavier and darker. Apart from a couple of examples the wines were well crafted and thought provoking and led to good discussions. All wines were served single blind.

If you want any impressions, on individual wines let me know, others who were there hopefully will pipe up as well.

For me the 04 Monte was close to my favourite (I’m biased) although the 08 did have a bit more acid and refreshing lift on the back palate, the Montelena was an exercise is decadence which I really loved. In the whites I really enjoyed the Evening Land, with its pure fruit and power and the Sandhi and Ceritas Porter Bass were not far behind. Although the general consensus was the Ceritas Trout Gulch and Walter Scott. Although a lot of the voting came down to one vote either way.

The Trousseau aka Muddy Water that smells and tastes nice, was a bit of a left of field wine, which had all the Jura lovers (oh wait, that is all of us) spruiking their thoughts. It was a more modern take on the grape with a less structured, drink now style which seemed to go down well.

Of the Pinots, the Cristom and Dr Edge Eola were my standouts, but the takeaway for me was how well they were made, with elements/characteristics of various countries coming out and coming together to produce really interesting wines.

And yes we had a cheeky Chablis to finish the night as a palate cleanser.

Thanks to Winston for the pics. Here is his Insta if you want the extra comments/banter on his posts, via Stories Winston (@winesthesia) • Instagram photos and videos




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Wow, helluva lineup Dave - nice work!!

Extra props if the 12 of you drained all of those bottles [wow.gif]

2004 Backus has been my favorite Phelps wine of all time so far. How was the 04 Insignia?

Good choices! It’s the new gen California.

While I’d love to taste this many wines in one evening, I have trouble seeing how 12 people can fully appreciate 28 bottles of wine in one sitting.

Haha there’s always someone who doesn’t understand the concept of spitting, or not finishing the entire bottle.

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Also bear in mind this over 9 hours, so a wine sat on for 20mins, ie 3 every hour is not a stretch. I drove home afterwards!! 60km drive. So as you can understand I was spitting the whole time.

Nose it, Sip, swirl, hold, spit, think about, nose it some more, sip, swirl, spit, discuss with people around you. Discuss with others, Google a bit about, find about the wine, what makes it tick, what makes the winemaker tick…dump any left overs.

Any bits left over in the bottle people can take home for the next day.

It is a learning experience, social experience, we enjoy each other’s thoughts and ideas and banter. A great way to spend an afternoon.

The Backus is some fantastic juice, to me the Insignia tried too hard at everything in comparison. Like everything was turned up a notch when it didn’t need to be. On its own I probably would have been raving about it but next to the Backus it was shown up.

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If you do it often enough…and give it enough time…it is easy to do.

It ends up being a combination of spitting, pacing and experience…

For sure, someone that hasn’t done anything close to this…will find it a struggle…and yes, it probably isn’t the most ideal setting to appreciate any single wine…but so what? There are different ways to appreciate wine…this setting provided a wide set of different wines to try so you can experience many different things at once. There are other times you’ll have more of a single wine and more time to concentrate on the little details and watch it evolve over time in a glass…They both have value.

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Dave
We did a much smaller version of this in Melbourne. Dominus looked brilliant. WOTN. Bond while well made looked a bit over the top for my palate.

I also like the menu, the boombox touch and the playlist. A total immersion experience!

Dave - love the notes and especially respect the logistics of getting this together. I have spent a good amount of time down under and fully appreciate the difficulty to score U.S. juice while there, especially central coast wines. That said - why bother as you guys got it pretty good there.

My Ozzie friends and I do something similar (but opposite) on January 26th; the menu typically consists of pies with a slab of VB or XXXX followed by roast lamb with Barossa’s or McLaren Vale’s finest. The difference is we don’t drive anywhere afterward. Cheers!

Excellent line-up Dave. Thanks for sharing. Over 9 hours taking into account food, WATER, spitting, pacing and leftovers it’s definitely doable.

Interesting. A monthly dinner group I belong to had our first gathering in more than a year last week with a New World theme and a 2002 Bond Vecina was one of the wines of the night while a 2015 Dominus was my least favorite because of an unpleasant caramel sweetness I’ve never before seen in a Dominus. Other standouts were a 1974 Mondavi, 1997 Vineyard 29, and 2017 William and Mary Schifflet Ranch CS.

Shoot man I need to be part of a wine group like that!