Wherein the line-up is determined one bottle at a time, blind.
I started. Baked apple, peach, chestnut, rich red-wine like body, masculine, tiny suggestion of oxidation, someone mentions gewürztraminer and I can see why. Surprising showing for me when comparing mentally to my last taste of this wine. 2010 Cowan ISA.
Also mine: almost light by comparison to the ISA, but shows well. Good acidity and overall body from concentration and light oak. 2011 Guado al Tasso Vermentino from Bolgheri. I just bought a case of this, and boy am I happy.
Same glass so it's not detergent, but my first sniff of this wine picked up soap followed by floral notes, silky texture. Nobody can place it. 2012 Eric Texier CdR blanc.
Rich, balanced, arneis-like, but it's of all things a Sauvignon Blanc. 2011 Sesti (Argiano) of Montalcino.
This next one was also mine, and about it you need to know that I rescued it from a pile of supposedly 'gone' wines being thrown out by a non-geek neighbor who brought this with him when he moved back to the U.S. from 30 years of expat life in Germany. Madeira-like with dates, orange rind, coconut and pine. Light, tangy and really tasty--took some doing for others to guess Riesling. Huge extra points to Brian for capturing it as "accidental oxidation". 1971 Olanner Kolenberg Zluslefe, Weingut Fried, Mosel, and a mere Qualitatat mit Predikat.
Sulfur nose, light, strawberry summery/'fun' palate. I go right to Beaujolais and am almost right, it's a gamay from the Macon. But I don't get the name.
This is Kirsten's. Ripe, bombastically young but really nice with some spice and Am oak showing, so we go to 09 Rioja and that's correct. Kirsten's a beginner so she's stunned that we get there so fast. 2009 Muga.
Here are beets and beef. Also, smokey with sundried tomato and black cherry. It's not Southern Rhone, Brian says when I guess that, so we go further south and yes, it's a Languedoc and we're stunned to learn it's a 1999. No way it seemed that far along. IMPRESSIVE. 1999 Grange des Peres.
This encourages me to trot out my red offering, a 1995 Musar. Brian, uncannily for most but typical of his razor sharp palate, goes right to "It's either Musar or something made by Sean Thackrey". He had a Pleiades in mind. Maybe it's the night (we're tasting outside, it's chilly, and Vic's wife is bringing out these amazing pizzas), but though I enjoy the wine which has no particular flaws, I don't find it a great or especially complex bottle.
Now Gabe puts a bottle on the table. Cabby, NW, elegant--by taste I can't recognize the producer but I'm very impressed. It's new world fruit but this has structure and attitude and it's not too-too, which is hard to be up here. Once it's unveiled I still don't recognize it--never heard of these people but the name is Baron's, and it's a 2010 Baron's 'Petit Barone' Columbia Valley Red Wine , a blend of mer (71%), cab franc and petit verdot.
And Gabe follows that with another. I suggest that it's another NW wine from the same producer, and I'm right. It's the 2008 Baron's, this time a blend of CS/Mer/CF.
Vic whips one out now. It's sweet, soft and very red fruity after the dark Washington entrants. 2010 Flora Springs Trilogy. We might have been nicer to it if it had followed the Macon, but it doesn't show well here and likely, to this crowd, it never will, especially at $27 cost and $40 intended shelf price.