Sunday, September 21, 2003

Wine of the Night - a Viognier Tasting Last night, the Ski Boy and I headed off to Mary Langdon's for a Viognier tasting/dinner party. It was a total blast. Great food, a wide range of interesting wines, and best of all - great company. We tasted six different Viogniers (listed below in order of tasing with my tasting notes ): R.H. Phillips EXP 2001 Not much nose. Flavor is a little sweet - underwhelming. Definitely the weak sister of the bunch. However, rumor has it that it had a real shot of acidity upon opening. But I didn't taste it until it had been open for about 30 minutes. Jaffurs 2000 Good metallic sulpher nose. Good body although not thick. Taste is metallic with some fruit. Reminds me of a good California Sauvignon Blanc. Very well made. Calera Mt. Harlan 2000 Little nose. Little to no fruit taste - very dry. Almost like a French Vouvray. This is a well made but unruly wine. It takes a chance. It's harsh and aggressive - but in a good way. After about an hour, the fruit started coming out. My favorite wine of the bunch. Guigal Condrieu 1999 A french wine. Hints of metal and sulpher in the nose. However, this wine is too old and has lots its spunk. Very very faint hints of the fruit that was once there. We thought that it was probably a very good wine before it petered out. Yalumba 2002 An Aussie wine. This wine is just like a New Zealand Sauvingon Blanc without the grapefruit taste. Big time acid. Arrowood 2000 A very well made wine. The best made wine of the bunch. Very smooth with the right mix of acid and fruit. At the end of the party, we voted for our favorite: 3 - Arrowood 3 - Calera 1 - Yalumba 1 - Jaffurs I also asked the group to describe the Viognier grape. We decided that Viognier is very chameleon-like. It shows off each wine maker's characteristics and idiosyncrasies. And here we are all - after quite a bit of wine! 4:56:35 PM    comment []

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