Vintastic! Wine Education Series

Jay & Icy Westerdal, Nancy Wallace, Andy Frey

On Thursday evening, along with ZINO Society member, Nancy Wallace, Andy Frey and Icy & Jay Westerdal, I attended the kick-off to the "Vintastic" wine education series at The Rainier Club:  The World's Best Reds.  Rainier Club Director of Wine and Spirits and a Court of Master Sommelier, Christopher Chan, led the tasting.  Here is a link to an interesting article that shares more about Christopher's interesting path to becoming a wine expert.

Christopher had specifically saved one bottle each of some great wines from The Rainier Club cellar for this tasting. We had the opportunity to taste eight great red wines ranging from 1997 to 2004 vintages from California, Oregon, Italy, Spain and France with grape varieties of Pinot Noir, Tempranillo, Sangiovese, Grenache, Mourvedre, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon.

As part of the session, Christopher also shared insights about glassware, how to do appropriate visual examination in the glass, how to use our olfactory senses most effectively both above the glass and in the glass prior to tasting and how to identify the different elements of the wine once we actually tasted it.  With Christopher's tutelage, we identified wine "nose" and "taste" elements including floral from gardenia to marigold, fruity from dark cherry to raspberry to cantaloupe, spice from cloves to dill as well as fresh-mown grass to loamy or compost, leather to 2x4 wood and dozens of others.

Here is the full list of the wines we tasted:

2004 Dom, Lignier-Michelot Morey-St-Denis 1er Cru Aux Charmes, FRA 

2004 Boedecker "Shea Vyd." Pinot Noir, OR

2004 Etude Pinot Noir, Carneros, CA

1996 Pesquera Tinto Reserva, Rioja, SPA

1997 A. Sanguinetti Brunello de Montalcino, ITA

2000 Domaine Vieux Telegraphe "La Crau" Chat. De Pape, FRA

1998 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa, CA

1999 Chateau Pape Clement Pessac-Leognan, FRA

Though every single wine was exceptional, my two favorites were the '98 Chateau Montelena and the '99 Chateau Pape Clement.  Now I am looking forward to next week's session which will be A Taste of Grand Cru Vineyards.