Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler wine thread

We celebrated a friend’s birthday party yesterday. Some of the bottles were just too darn good to not mention on this thread.




From left to right:

06 Paloma Merlot (Napa Spring Mountain)
02 Quintessa 1.5 ltr (we did not drink this one, as it was his gift)
01 Dominus 1.5 ltr
04 Chateau Lafite Rothschild
05 Palazzo
06 Wallace
07 Charles Krug Chardonnay
Not shown that we also drank:
06 Jericho Canyon Sav Blanc
06 Charles Krug Cab Sav Rose
05 Chateau Reignac


We started out with the Jericho Canyon Sav Blanc. This is a fantastic bottle. Very crisp nose with lots of flavor. A must get if you like Sav Blanc. It’s not too expensive either…

Next was the Krug Rose. This is the first rose I’ve ever had that uses Cab Sav fruit. Very good. Very unique. Another must buy if you like rose.

The Paloma was next. This is the only bottle this vineyard makes that I’m aware of. It’s hard to get. I was fortunate enough to score six of these. If you like Merlot, this has got to be the best Merlot I’ve ever had. If you get an opportunity to buy one, do it.

Next up was the Lafite. This is the first time I’ve ever had a first growth. I must say, it was fantastic. I’ve never had a Cab Sav that had tannins that felt like velvet. Incredible earthy nose, amazing pallet and a finish that just lingered on and on……

We changed things up a bit with the Wallace. It’s a very nice Shiraz from Australia.

The Palazzo was next. Holy crap what a great bottle! This is the only bottle they make. It’s a blend with 70% Merlot, 22% Cab Franc and 8% Cab Sav. Another must buy.

The Dominus was next. We had that with dinner, which was pot roast that I cooked in a crock pot all day. Dominus is one of my favorites. It’s always good.

We capped the night off with the Reignac. Another blend. It’s 75% Merlot and 25% cab sav. This one we probably shouldn’t have opened. All of our pallets were a bit saturated by this point. However, I have to say that this bottle is one heck of a bargain. It had the nose of a good Napa cab with some earthy tones and the pallet you'd expect from a French wine, but plenty of fruity berries as well.

Only after NINE bottles was the palate saturated?
Nice list of wines.

We had a Turkey Flat (Aus shiraz 2001) and a Luzon Monastrell (Spa) last night with a pork tenderloin and a sirloin tip roast.

The Turkey Flat, complex, smooth, somewhat atypical Aussie shiraz but stunning.

The Luzon, two words, "black pepper".
VERY differnt but excellent with the beef.


Yowza.

Well we did it finally.
Got the Vinturi, did the blind tasting at New Year's.

I'll type more later. I'm working on putting together an 'over the john' unit.

After a year and half of being on their “wait list”, I finally got on the “mailing list” for Turley!

I also got on the mailing list for Peter Michael wines. Unfortunately, I now get to see how much they cost. I won’t be buying any wines from Peter Michael…. Their Chardonnay’s start at $75 and their reds start at $175. Yikes!

So Chess… where’s that summery on the venturi?

Still waiting on the list for Turley. We will probably head to the tasting room during the kids spring break, then back again on May 16th for the annual Paso wine festival.

Paso wine festival? I know nothing of this event. Please provide details.

I'm going to V2V this April. Not real sure if I'll make another Napa trip or not. Most likely not.

Paso Wine Festival The Wine Festival is a lot of fun, we don't do the park event but roam from winery to winery, most have special entertainment, food, tours with barrel tasting and many other events happening. Normally about a month before the festival each winery will have a schedule of its events posted on this site. Plus it costs about 10% of what our usual trip to Napa runs.

Damn that looks fun.... The V2V is April 25th. I've already committed to going to that. I reckon I'll have to go to the festival next year.

All these festivals.
You guys are making me jealous, and thirsty.

Had a Rosenblum last weekend, petit syrah.
Very balanced.
I could get into these petit syrahs.


Yes i forgot to post my thoughts.
Haven't sat down much at the home comp lately. Too much evening activity (bbqs, hockey, family).

Long story short (rare for me), the results are inconclusive and more testing is required.

Three testers.
Two red wines (tasted in separate tests, same evening).
Wine 1
Lindemans Pyrus 1997
Wine 2
A Californian zin whose brand i don't quite recall but i can find out. A quality wine though.


The challenge:
3 glasses (2 fresh wine, 1 venturi'd immediately after uncorking the bottle).

The Results:
Wine 1
Tester A and B guessed that the first glass was the different of the three. Tester C guessed the third glass was different.
Tester C was correct.

Wine 2
Tester A guessed that the first glass was the different of the three. Tester B and C guessed the third glass was different.
Tester A was correct.

Our final test was done with a white wine, not blind and only 2 glasses (we were well on our way out the coherent door by this point), tested in A/B fashion, quick and tasty.
All three agreed that the bouquet was significantly different with the vinturi'd offering and that the finish was more smooth.
Coincidentally, during the red wine testing, the same or similar comment was made regarding the testers notes on the correctly guessed wines.
On the incorrectly guessed wines, the tasters had trouble distinguishing a different taste but found that at least one of the wines was definitely more 'robust' or open in its bouquet.

One of the main problems, trying to ABX red wines saturates the pallette. By the time you get to glass #3, flavors from glass 1 and 2 (even with bread in between) was hard to recall quickly.
After our guessing round, we all grabbed the three glass and tested them with a quick sip from each but unless someone messed up the first round of glass placement, the taste was still hard to distinguish though testers A and B were positive and in agreement that the first glass was significantly different from the other two. We contemplated if by pouring the first glasses from the bottle after uncorking could have been aerated enough on the way out to be different.
Not sure, but unlikely.

So, like i said, inconclusive really BUT i think there is merit to the vinturi, the science behind it, and worth another round of testing.
I do believe, from our observations and the white wine round of testing that rushing air through the wine so quickly and vigorously could be changing the chemistry.

Interesting results Chess. So far, every single person that has tried wine ran through the device has noticed something different. I don’t use three glasses though. I just keep it simple. Two glasses, one using the Venturi and one right out of the bottle. They have no idea which is which. I have not tried to use it with white wine though. I think I will this weekend.

I signed up with another winery last year. So far I’ve had all their wines and find them to be very good and reasonably priced.

T-Vine Cellars. All their wines have a strong fruity pallet, but not overly extracted or jammy. http://www.tvinecellars.com/

The idea was to eliminate bias in knowing there 'has' to be a difference between the two glasses. I wanted to answer the first question: Does the vinturi do anything? (one must consistently pick out the glass that is different from the other two).
If yes, then i could move to the two glasses to answer the question: Which do i like better? (not knowing which had been run through the vinturi)

I'm looking through my cellar for something to crack this evening but lately i've realized that many of my holdings are up in the $18+ per bottle range. If i don't start refreshing some cases of lower cost wines, i'm going to go broke.