My first blind tasting

Of all the tastings I've done, until last week I had never participated in a full-on double-blind tasting (where nothing is known about the wines). I finally managed to go to a Friday evening tasting at Bin 75 Wine Bar adjacent to Hinton's Wine Store in the north Atlanta suburbs. At the tasting, everyone brings a bottle (minimum purchase price of $40) and then the group tastes together. I had no idea what to expect, and was truthfully a bit concerned about how I would do in identifying wines.

The were about a dozen folks in attendance and I arrived just as the first wine was being poured. I won't go into details about each due to the number of wines tasted, but I was quite happy with my tasting performance - I never identified a specific wine, but I was able to ID the grape and country most of the time, and several times got the region as well. I never nailed a vintage, though I was close on a couple.

The tasting featured a great range of wines, and also offered some great contrasts withing certain regions and even among different vintages of the same wine. We began with the 2000 Chateau St. Jean Cinq Cepages, followed by the 2004 Descendientes de Jose Palacios Villa de Corullon Bierzo, a wine I liked but could not identify,

We then hit a stretch of Barolos - the 2004 Francesco Rinaldi Cannubio led off, but had some sort of acidity issue. Up next was the 2000 Pira-Chiara Boschis Via Nuova, which was really fantastic. I was able to have a little more later in the evening and it was even better - a Barolo that could make anyone a fan of Nebbiolo. We followed that with the 2000 Pio Cesare Ornato, and it was amazing to taste the difference between these two from the same vintage. This wine tasted older and had no real typical Nebbiolo characteristics.

Our next two wines were well out of my normal range - a 2004 Carlton Hills Pinot Noir from Oregon and the 1993 Heitz Cabernet Sauvignon, a wine that stumped everyone, especially with its freshness for a 16-year-old wine.

We then had two wines that stumped most everyone - the 1998 Castello di Rampolla Sammarco and the 2005 St. Jean Cinq Cepages. I was amazed at the difference between this Cinq Cepages and the 2000, as this wine did not have as much of a Cab profile and actually had me leaning toward an Aussie blend.

Our next wine was my contribution for the night, the 1996 Henri Bonneau Chateauneuf du Pape. Everyone knew it was a Chateauneuf, as it had the typical profile, but it was also in a great sweet spot that showed all the greatness of an aged Chateauneuf. Several folks thought this was the wine of the night, and I would struggle to disagree (though the Boschis Barolo gave it a great run).

The final wine of the original lineup was the 2003 Remirez de Ganuza Rioja, which was way too oaky for me, especially for a wine with a few years of age on it. After that, more wines popped up as folks wanted to keep going. The first was the 2004 Domaine de Courbissac La Liviniere Minervois, which tasted like a Southern Rhone Grenache. We then had the 2005 Duhart-Milion, a great young Bordeaux that is probably just starting to shut down now.

The tasting continued with three final wines from Tuscany (though again we did not know this). First was the 2001 Il Poggione Brunello, which was quite nice. There were many jokes throughout the evening about "when in doubt guess Brunello," but here I was certain the wine actually was Brunello. Next we had a 2003 Giovanna Ciacci Brunello, which was unfortunately corked. To give us a better finish, we then had the 2006 Querciabella Chianti, which was quite nice even though I could not identify it as a Chianti.

Overall this was a fantastic evening. I loved being able to taste such a wide variety of great wines, and was happy to see that my palate has developed enough to at least recognize many grapes and some regions. I certainly plan to attend more of these tastings in the future and will try to make sure to write up recaps of them. I'm certainly grateful to Keith Lofton at the Wine Store for inviting me to this group, as it was a wonderful evening and a lot of fun for me.