Sub-Total £0.00
For those in the wine trade, one of the characteristics of Spring has long been the proliferation of wine tasting events. These events, which often have a public component as well, begin in February and by April, an ambitious wine taster can easily be going to three or four per week.
Now, of course, nothing of the sort is happening. The last place anyone wants to be is jostling shoulder to shoulder and sharing pours from a communal wine bottle that is often handled by scores of people before it is empty.
But, such tastings are fantastic opportunities to taste wine, and, more importantly, educate one’s palate. They can also be a load of fun.
One of my favorite tastings each year is the Wine & Spirits Top 100 event, which coincides with the publishing of their Top 100 wines of the year. Most of the wineries honored in that annual issue show up to pour their awarded wines as well as whatever else they may have brought along.
At the end of the annual tasting, I always find myself wishing I had another couple of hours to wander around and taste wine. Perhaps this is partly because of the bottomless oyster bar with fresh kumamoto oysters, a welcome respite from rounds of tasting, but mostly the wines on offer are generally of such high quality that I simply would like to taste them all.
Sitting here now in self-isolation with time to finally compile my notes and scores for these wines, such a tasting seems like an incomparable luxury — a hallmark of a different time and place, far removed from current circumstances. Reviewing the wines I tasted offers something of a reverie of flavor and pleasure that after only a few months already has a tinge of nostalgia for me.
If you’re stuck at home (and who isn’t?) looking for wines to buy, this might be an interesting list to explore. There are wines here to fit any price point, and pretty much every one of these wines will deliver pleasure and personality in equal measure.
I can only hope that events such as this will be held once again as we emerge from the strictures that mark this current battle against our invisible foe.
Here are my roughly 100 scores from the 2019 Top 100 tasting held this past Autumn in San Francisco. For those unfamiliar with my approach at such tastings, suffice it to say that they are far from the best environment to carefully and thoughtfully evaluate wines. Instead of taking detailed tasting notes, I jot down initial impressions and offer a score, all of which you may choose to take with a requisite grain of salt given the circumstances of the tasting.