Can You Find Love in the Dark?
Strip away marketing, perception, pricing and reputation, and all you’re left with is the bare naked truth. A few weekends ago, my wife and I got together with some friends for some outstanding food and a little wine. However, this particular evening, we decided to mix things up a little by “bagging” all of the wine to see how many would find “love in the dark”.
The criteria for this particular evening:
- Bring a bottle of Pinot Noir from anywhere on the planet priced less than $30.
- After getting “bagged”, our judges were to utilize two scoring methods to give each Pinot Noir a fair shot at finding love in the dark: The WL365 method and a 25 Point Wine Scorecard to evaluate each wine based on appearance, aroma, body, taste, and finish.
- We combined the scores of each one to find out who got some love and who got the cold shoulder from the panel.
Our panel sure looks raring to go!
Our lovely hostess Candice showed off her dazzling cooking skills with several scrumptious Pinot Noir friendly recipes. A few were from the book titled, “Oregon Bounty Recipes”, and one was an old family recipe of lollipop lamb chops with fresh rosemary, parsley and garlic that was simply out of this world GOOD!
Lamb Chops:
Baked Foreleg Pears with Proscuitto and Blue Cheese:
And no wine tasting party would complete without a little cheese – we had several fancy–shmancy selections to choose from: Tomme Aydius (France), Kunik (Nettle Meadow) (US), Fontina Val d’Aosta D.O.C, and Pleasant Ridge Reserve from Dodgeville, Wisconsin.
And to top things off, we had a magnificent mascarpone cheesecake to ensure that our daily dairy requirements would be fully met by the end of the night. Unfortunately my photographer called it quits by this point in the evening, so I don’t have a picture of the cheesecake.
Now back to the wine! It’s just you, an empty glass, and 9 brown-bagged Pinot Noirs! Here were some of the comments:
Brown Bag #1 – Our tasters said: “I liked it. One of my favorites!” “Low.” “Peppery, tannic.” “It’s ok…kind of tarry and smoky tasting.”
Brown Bag #2 – Our tasters said: “More balance of fruit and pepper than Brown Bag #1.” “Stinky Feet.” “Smoky, a bit veg. Crazy stuff, interesting.”
Brown Bag #3 – Our tasters said: “Fresh berry nose. Tart berry taste. Absolutely no finish. It’s like drinking stale Kool-Aid.” “Licorice, sweet aroma.” “Did not like at all. Weak. No flavors to mention.” “Everyday drinking type of Pinot Noir.”
Brown Bag #4 – Our tasters said: “Black pepper, spices and berries. It’s ok in every way.” “Sugary, sweet aroma.” “Almost watery appearance. No real legs running down the glass.” “Peppery on the finish. Great wine!”
Brown Bag #5 – Our tasters said: “Burnt tar, very tannic, nice berry flavors, a bit hot on the alcohol.” “Dry.” “Pinkish color, upfront strawberry flavors, low pepper and spice.”
Brown Bag #6 – Our tasters said: “Slight tannin, no fruit flavors”. “Light from start to finish. Flowery strawberry and licorice notes”. “Bright aroma, medium length, dry”.
Brown Bag #7 – Our tasters said: “Good everyday Pinot Noir. Good Thanksgiving wine.” “My favorite.” “Pretty, nice balance of fruit and spices.” “My 2nd favorite of the bunch.” “I like this wine a lot, good combo of fruit and oak, super long finish.”
Brown Bag #8 – Our tasters said: “Very enjoyable Pinot Noir.” “Big on the nose, I like it.” “Peppery notes on the nose.” “Peppery, smooth, great with food.”
Brown Bag #9 – Our tasters said: “Astringent, leggy, brown, tannic, pepper, little fruit.” “Long finish.” “Peppery notes on the nose.” “A bit veg on the nose, brownish tint, very disappointing, bad.”
Let’s reveal their identities and find out who found love in the dark and who didn’t:
9th Place – Brown Bag #9 – 2005 Cambria Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir Julia’s Vineyard ($25)
8th Place – Brown Bag #6 – 2008 Willamette Valley Vineyards “Whole Cluster Fermented” Pinot Noir (Received as a sample. $19 SRP)
7th Place – Brown Bag #3 – 2008 Domaine Cornu-Camus Pernand-Vergelesses ($25)
6th Place – Brown Bag #4 – 2008 Wild Rock Pinot Noir ($17)
5th Place – Brown Bag #2 – 2007 Valdivieso Reserva Pinot Noir ($15.50)
4th Place – Brown Bag #5 – 2007 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir (Received as a sample. $25 SRP)
3rd Place – Brown Bag #1 – 2007 Orogeny Pinot Noir Green Valley ($25)
2nd Place – Brown Bag #8 – 2008 Fess Parker “Santa Barbara County” Pinot Noir ($23)
1st Place and the Winner of this tasting was Brown Bag #7 – 2007 Acacia “Carneros” Pinot Noir ($20)
A very special thanks to Candice and Rob Holden for hosting and to all that participated in this blind tasting. Looking forward to the next one…Cheers!
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I'll take each and every bottle
Love my wine
Cammus? Camus? Too much of a coincidence!lol!
Blind tastings are the best!!!!!
The 2005 Cambria did not age well ,oldest of the bunch,2007 was a very good year from the tasters viewpoints! Nice review.
I agree Maria. It puts all of the wine (and the people that brought them) on an even playing field! Mark
Thanks James. Good observation about the 2005 – that may have been a factor!
This is such a good idea! Looks like a lot of fun.
This looks like it was an amazing time! We're coming next time… so much fun.
Rob + Carey
This one was definitely a good time (8 people), but no comparison to the one from this past weekend (80+ people)! The post for that one will go up in the next day or so. Hope to do something like it again, and you two will be at the top of the invite list!
[...] #1 GRANTED: My wife phoned our good friends Rob and Candice Holden and asked them if they would be willing to open up their gorgeous early 20th century home to nearly [...]
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