In a dramatic improvement over our experience at the Wine Week Champagne tasting, we found the Grand Tasting to be one of the best wine tasting events we've attended.
The layout was key - probably 100 producers were spread out through the room and interspersed with local restaurants sampling wine-friendly foods. I think I learned as much about the Houston restaurant scene as anything.
There was a stage to one side featuring entertaining presentations from top Louisiana chefs, much of the event being a fund-raiser for businesses still struggling to recover from the 2005 hurricane season.
And of course, there was the WINE! The producers were showcasing their best, many pouring $30 bottles and bringing out the really high-end bottles for those of us who were really interested (which I was!).
Best of Tasting: Ravenswood's 2004 Dickerson Zinfandel, a dark, intense, brooding sort of Zin. Appropriate, as I was told that it was a memorial vintage for the vineyard owner, who was killed in last year's tsunami in Indonesia. Find it at http://www.ravenswood-wine.com/wines/dickerson.asp
Worst Surprise: Kim Crawford Pinot Noir. I was excited to try some Kim Crawford wines, as I see them on a lot of menus. My only note by this wine name was one word, in all caps: "NO!". Kim Crawford also poured an unoaked Chard which was, as one might expect, very, very light. No citrus tinge (which I personally don't care for), but not a lot else to back it up.
Best Surprise: Rodney Strong. Okay, this was the last winery I visited, so possibly both my palette and my judgment were a little off by then. But I tasted a meritage called Symmetry and was very impressed. I am going to go to a winemaker dinner they are holding in the area soon and check them out further.
Other notes: I went to this tasting in search of the perfect Chardonnay. I usually drink red, but recently I've had occasion to order white wine in restaurants several times and have been universally disappointed. My top Chardonnay picks from the event:
- Merryvale Chardonnay (didn't write down the vintage, but most were tasting '04s), which had lots of oak, not much acidity, not much citrus, and was overall a solid choice to go with anything EXCEPT GARLIC, which clashes horribly with oaky wines.
- Kendall Jackson Grand Reserve - this one retails for $14 at Sam's, and I was surprised to like it as well as I did. It was fruit forward, with some mellow French oak. I liked this one well enough that I went to Sam's and bought a couple of bottles.
- Matanzas Creek - this one didn't finish as well as it started, but it started out to be PHENOMENAL.
Stay tuned for more on Rodney Strong as the story unfolds.
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