Sauvignon Blanc Smackdown : Results / Rankings

WINE TALK
1

I hosted a sauvignon blanc blind tasting last night and thought people might be interested in the results / rankings.These were all tasted blind by 11 of us. The mix of people in the room ranged from people going through the Master Som program to long time wine lovers, to even winemakers and growers. And then there were people like me who just like to taste things and discover what I like.

#1: OC Custom Wines (napa grapes) '08 $20 (this is an Orange County winery that’s been around for a few years but it’s their first vintage of Sauvignon Blanc)

#2: Mondavi I-Block '06 $75 (just a hair behind #1)

#3: Starborough NZ '08 $10

#4: Mason Napa '06 $13

#5: Kim Crawford NZ '08 $14

#6: Chalk Hill Sonoma '06 $18

#7: Hoopla Napa '07 $13

#8: Napa Station '07 $14

#9: Brassfield Napa '07 $10

#10: Murphy Goode '08 $9

#11: Cloudy Bay '08 $24 (yes, a big name, but always seems to perform poorly)

#12: Twomey '08 $20. (my gosh was this nasty)

2

Consistenly underwhelmed by the “Big Name” of Cloudy Bay now that they make tens of thousands of cases. I would really liked to have tasted an SB from them when they were small and focused on what they were doing.

3

Looks like fun Matt. Any reason for leaving out the old world?

RT

4

Yeah… as opposed to doing SB from around the World, I decided to let people taste from the same region so that they new what they liked best when facing the grocery store. It’d be neat to do an old world tasting too, maybe then take the best of each and do an old-new world smackdown.

5

Let me guess. Over-oaked sb?