Tasting Group at my house......

One of my regular groups meets monthly. The guys have been together for over 30 years and have a tremendous amount of wine knowledge (they don't know about anything else!). Coming up with a format that is different is tough.

The theme for tonight was to show a review with the name of the wine and viticultural area removed to see if they could guess what it was and where it came from. The results were a disaster. They did better blind.

Dinner was a treat. I had steaks flown in from Bryan's Fine Foods in San Francisco. They were double cut NY strips aged 30 days. Holy smokes were they good!!

Here's the lineup:


1992 Dom Perignon-Small beads. Bready aromas. Fat mid palate. Right out of the gate it was exciting but faded rather quickly.

2004 F.X. Pichler Gruner Veltliner Smaragd Loibner Berg-I liked this much more than the rest of the group. Loads of minerals, clean, complex with a long life ahead of it.

2002 Domaine Michelot Meurault Perrieres-Not what I would consider my type of Meursault Perrieres. Nose of orange peel with citrus notes. The wood was a bit more pronounced than I like. Solid wine but not on the mark for me.

1997 Livio Sassetti Pertimali Brunello-Just as I've come to expect from most 1997 Brunello. It tries but falls short. Aromatics were muted. Cherries and smoke. The flavors were great but still appear to be hiding. I'm not sure this will have the stuffing to fully develop.

1998 Dal Forno Valpolicella-Now we're talking. Soaring aromatics, everything in balance, long finish. Me Likey. A WOTN for a couple of guys.

2000 Clos Mogador- Still very young and primary but a hell of a bottle. Can't wait to see where this goes.

1995 Clos Erasmus-My disappointment of the night. This was my second bottle of this wine and the first blew me away. There was a funk to this one that I just couldn't get past.

1995 Pegau Cuvee Reservee-Open for business. Meaty, sweet, long. This kept changing as the night went on. My red WOTN.

1995 Leoville Barton-Very exciting. Everything is here but the wine is still closed. It was enjoyable as hell but just needs more time. I opened this at 4AM and we got to it sometime around 8:30PM.

1994 Galleron Cabernet Sauvignon-My first experience with this. IMO quality that can be classified as a California cult wine. Flamboyant and rich. Great balance.

1991 Chateau Montelena Estate-This still needs time but is developing beautifully. Restrained and beautiful. Very glad I own more but I'm going to wait a bit.

1993 Henschke Mount Edelstone Shiraz-None of us has had a lot of opportunity to drink older Aussie Shiraz. This is a good reason to. Lots of herbal, eucalyptus notes. Not over the top. Just a really nice wine that had developed extraordinary secondary characteristics.

1922 D'Oliveiras Madeira Boal Reserve-My first Maderia. Friggin awesome. Coffee, toffee, vanilla notes that ran incredibly deep. I could have kept my nose in the glass all night.