Concha y Toro Marques de Casa Concha Chardonnay 2007, Chile;
Creamy and ripe
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Is Rioja a wine or a region? [
CorkSavvy talks to Winemaker Rick Sayre of Rodney Strong Vineyards.
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Apple Upside Down Cake with Salty Caramel and Whipped Cream from Jeff Mall of Zin Restaurant & Wine Bar
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Looking for something fun and different to do on a beautiful fall day?
Consider taking a scenic drive through bucolic landscapes infused with
the smells and colors of autumn with your destination being the North
Fork of Long Island Wineries about 75 miles from Manhattan.
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Whether you are a wine enthusiasts or a novice wine drinker, participating in a vertical wine tasting is a fun and educational experience. Vertical tastings are classical themes for wine tasting parties or wine tasting classes. Vertical wine tastings are tastings where the wines tasted are all from the same producer, generally the same wine, from several different vintages (years). By doing this you are able to get in depth knowledge about a particular producer and their wine. This allows you to see how subtle or dramatic a wine changes from year to year and how weather patterns or possibly small changes in production in a particular year affects the wine.
A question arises whether you should serve younger wines before older wines or vice versa. Generally wines are served younger first because they are simpler than the older more complex wines. A problem can present itself when the younger wine is very bold and reduces the ability to enjoy the subtleties of older wines.
I recently had the opportunity to attend a vertical tasting of Shafer Vineyard’s Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon hosted by Sherry-Lehmann Wine and Spirits and Kevin Zraly, a renowned wine expert and founder of Windows on the World Wine School and tasted with John Shafer who founded the Vineyard in Napa Valley in 1972. After only a decade in production Shafer’s Cabernet Sauvignon took first place in an international blind tasting where it outranked such venerable wines as Chateau Margaux, Chateau Latour and Chateau Palmer. Robert Parker of the Wine Advocate refers to the Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon as “…one of the New World’s most profound Cabernet Sauvignons.” The Wine Spectator’s James Laube says of Shafer’s Hillside: “Shafer, of course, has been one of Napa’s most reliable wineries, routinely producing great wines, chief among them its Shafer Hillside Select Cabernet from Stags Leap”. This Master Wine Class included 10 different vintages served from youngest to oldest wine. The 2005 bottles of Shafer Hillside Select sell for $215. Although the class was well attended and enjoyed by all, it would be equally desirable to participate and learn from a vertical tasting of any wines that catch your interest. --Jill Sloane
Click for photos from the Shafer Vertical Tasting.
