WTN: SOBER does Austria, Rioja, Rhone, Burg, Italy, etc

We had vegetarian tacos for meatless Monday, and the 2007 Donnhoff Riesling QbA was it's usual friendly self. B/B+

Cathleen hosted SOBER last night. All wines were blind. As we gathered, we enjoyed proscuitto, great salami, and 2 Champagnes

Bubbly #1
Lithe, elegant, pear and lemon with a little yeast/doughy note. Nice mousse, excellent length, when revealed I was surprised at age (I've had before but this was best bottle I've had). A-/B+
1985 Charles Heidsieck "Champagne Charlie"

Bubbly #2
Green apple, ginger, more acidity, thin in comparison, but a nice wine. Cathleen said it was NV grower and I guessed Clouet, though this was a different label (silver rather than dark blue and gold) that I had seen before. B+/B
NV Andre Clouet Brut Champagne

White flight, with a delicious soup (white and green asparagus with I believe speck). This took a lot of guesses

White #1
Melon and white fruits, with an odd occasional whiff of lemon pledge. Broadbeamed on palate, holding on fine, floral. If not for the hint of cleaning supplies I would have liked more. B/B-
1997 Rudi Pichler Weissburgunder Smaragd

White #2
Big, structured, ripe with good acidity. I thought this was white Burgundy at first. White fruits (especially pear), citrus, nice long minerally finish. Once revealed as GV it seemed typical, but I did not spot at all originally. B+
2002 FX Pichler Terrasen Gruner Veltliner Smaragd

First red flight, with some delicious meatballs. Craig deserves credit for almost immediately saying "I think this is the same wine, with the first 15 years younger." I think everyone was in Northern Rhone, though someone suspected one (the second?) could be Southern.

Wine #1
Lots of grilled meat, burly but with definition and elegance, young. Very good. B+, with upside potential. 1999 Chave Hermitage

Wine # 2
Beautiful, perfumed, complete. A bit of bacon, a hint of barnyard, fully mature but not tired. Really nice. Mark guesses Chave, then1983 or 1982 - he's 2 for 2
A- 1983 Chave Hermitage


Second Red Flight, with a great dish of rabbit ragu over cheese ravioli

Wine # 1
Sweet, ripe, fresh acids, sandalwood, red fruits. Dan gets Rioja quickly.
A-/B+
1981 Lopez de Heredia, Bosconia, Rioja Gran Reserva


Wine #2
This is unfortunately madeirized. 1982 Giuseppe Mascarello Monprivato Barolo

Wine #3
Medium fruit, mature but with tannins, red fruit, flowers, eucalyptus/menthol. I'm thinking old Cali but she say old World, as soon as we are in Bordeaux Craig guesses 1975. I guess Margaux- nope. B+/B 1975 Cos d'Estournel (Saint Estephe)

Wine #4
I think this was to be in next flight, but she wanted to make sure we had wine for the rabbit once Barolo was off. Earthy, ripe, rich, good length and structure. Mark calls it as Gevrey, we start off younger before getting vintage. A-, with potential
1993 Jadot "Clos St Jacques" Gevrey-Chambertin


Third Red Flight, with cheese plate (lovely French cheeses from fromage.com- Camembert, Lingot, Pont L'eveque, Brie, an especially good Comte, and a chevre).

Wine #1
Good fruit, some light tannins, nice if a bit anonymous, I had no idea Rioja. I've had some 94s that were showing age, but this is fine. B. 1994 Roda 1 Rioja

Wine #2
Powerful, Cab fruit, cassis and a bit of vanilla and leather. Someone guesses Bordeaux, then Mark guesses SuperTuscan, and Andy guesses Sassacaia. A-/B+1989 Sassicaia (Bolgheri) from magnum

Lemon Tart
Dessert Wine:
One thought of Madeira, but we're quickly in Port. Craig says colhieta with age, no but it is a tawny. Toffee, raisins, a little caramel, Nice. B+
40 Year Old Taylor Tawny

Really fine night. Great selection of wines, great company, excellent food. Thanks to Cathleen and Steve for hosting.

Grade disclaimer: I'm a very easy grader, basically A is an excellent wine, B a good wine, C mediocre. Anything below C means I wouldn't drink at a party where it was only choice. Furthermore, I offer no promises of objectivity, accuracy, and certainly not of consistency.

[Jenise]

What a great lineup. So all wines are served blind, but do the hosts look and arrange them? I'm thinking it has to be, since the Chaves ended up together. I have that 99 btw, it's a beaut.

Not blind to the host, who furnishes all of the wine. Makes it easy to match food!
There's also one SOBERite who prefers not to taste blind, host furnishes him list beforehand, but he never says one word re wine as we are trying to get it (he might smirk on occasion).
Lots of fun guessing, but lots of fun being the host too (can be fun to be tricky how you answer questions).

[Jenise]

Not blind to the host, who furnishes all of the wine. Makes it easy to match food!

That's an interesting way to do it. It would require, though, all members of the group to have fairly extensive cellars plus some interest/ability in hosting a meal, which you're lucky to have. None of the groups I've ever been in were/are quite that evenly balanced!

Mark originally chose people on those criteria. The hosr is actually "reimbursed" for the wine, we each contribute up to $150 (that's the max, sometimes a bit less, I think last time I said $120 per person- I used lowest Winesearcher for wines I'd have a while, and what I paid on some I had acquired in last 3 years). Sometimes the $150 is a drop in bucket- a 6 flight dinner at Andy's had several flights probably over that total for the flight- like the 59 Mouton and Lafite !

We've talked about dropping the money, but it does make it seem kind of even- no one thinks it's ultra important to have have hosting order be
exact, and it's ok if someone has to miss a month. And if someone needs to leave the group it's not like "hey, it was his turn to host soon!"

Plus it makes it easy to justify if you want to source a bottle for tasting (what's $300, if I'm getting $800 back?). I mostly go with cellared wines, but have bought when I see a good flight in the making and my turn is coming up

But everyone tends to dig deep in their cellars. Pretty much everyone enjoys cooking/hosting, our one city resident borrowed a friend's loft for space reasons. Our original group had one person who worried that they couldn't cook due to work, but we agreed that it was fine to host at a restaurant or bring in catering. Pizza would be fine if you wanted to do an Italian theme. But that person dropped out early (we have nine members, I think we started with 8 in early 2006, added 4, have had 3 dropouts -never more than 9 at a time).

[Jenise]

And if someone needs to leave the group it's not like "hey, it was his turn to host soon!"

Plus it makes it easy to justify if you want to source a bottle for tasting (what's $300, if I'm getting $800 back?). I mostly go with cellared wines, but have bought when I see a good flight in the making and my turn is coming up

But everyone tends to dig deep in their cellars. Pretty much everyone enjoys cooking/hosting, our one city resident borrowed a friend's loft for space reasons. Our original group had one person who worried that they couldn't cook due to work, but we agreed that it was fine to host at a restaurant or bring in catering. Pizza would be fine if you wanted to do an Italian theme. But that person dropped out early (we have nine members, I think we started with 8 in early 2006, added 4, have had 3 dropouts -never more than 9 at a time).

Our L.A. group had a single guy who 1) never hosted and 2) was on every highly allocated list known to man and had more wine than any of us (champagne and burgundy were his two great loves), and yet he only brought relatively modest wines to our tastings--eventually, we felt cheated and agreed he had to go. SOBER's way of doing it is the perfect equalizer--not that it would have solved the hosting issue in our friend's case, he was given the option of hosting in a restaurant and he wouldn't even do that--it's just not a method I've ever considered before. Would now, though, that I understand how you work it.