Warm-up Wines
Nothing gets an evening going like sparkling wine, and when you are about to enjoy an evening of fine Italian wines, the sparkling wine you start with is Prosecco. A bottle each of NV Collalto Extra Dry Prosecco ($15) and NV Zardetto Brut Prosecco ($12) really did the trick.
Blind Tasting Wines (listed in order of most preferred)
There were five bottles in the blind tasting, more than adequate for the eight tasters present that evening. The vintages were closely spaced, only 2003 and 2004. One wine was clearly the group's favorite, and one was just as clearly out of favor.
The scoring algorithm is simple. Everyone ranks their wines from first to last. A wine receives a point value equal to its rank (i.e. first place equals 1 point, second place equals 2 points, and so forth). We add up the points, and the wine with the lowest score wins ... just like in golf. Just for your information only, the number of votes each wine received for first, second and last place is also presented.
- 2004 La Spinetta Ca' Di Pian Barbera d'Asti ($23): 10 points (6 first, 2 second, 0 last) Six of the eight tasters ranked this wine 1st, and the other two folks ranked it 2nd. This was the clear favorite wine of the evening. It was dark and had more pronounced fruit flavors than the rest. Wine Spectator gave this wine 87 points.
2004 Luciano Sandrone Barbera d'Alba ($34): 21 points (1 first, 4 second, 1 last) This was the most expensive wine of the evening. It was very dark, and had nice concentrated flavors, ending with a slight bitterness on the finish. Wine Spectator gave this wine 87 points.
2003 Icardi Suri' Di Mu' Barbera d'Alba ($24): 23 points (1 first, 1 second, 0 last) This wine had very good color, lovely flavors and reasonably long finish. Wine Spectator gave this wine 85 points.
2003 Elvio Cogno Bricco dei Merli Barbera d'Alba ($27): 28 points (0 first, 1 second, 1 last) This was a decent wine that had a nice warm feeling in the mouth, and was just a bit more tannic than the rest. Wine Spectator gave this wine 83 points.
2004 Damilano Barbera d'Alba ($18 ): 38 points (0 first, 0 second, 6 last) It was quite clear in the voting that people did not care for this wine; six of the tasters ranked it last, and the other two ranked it next to last. This wine had a slightly off aroma; it was not corked, but it may have picked up some other problem in the winemaking process. It was also rather light-bodied and had a very short finish. Wine Spectator gave this wine 88 points, which seems just wrong.
Dessert Wines
Our hosts really knew how to finish off this tasting, by providing yummy homemade Italian desserts with two different bottles of frizzante wine: 2005 Montaribaldi Moscato d'Asti ($12) and 2005 Saracco Moscato d'Asti ($15). Both of these were fragrant, slightly sweet and altogether yummy.
-- Clark