I spent yesterday afternoon at the Wine Tasting Association/Chevy Chase Wine & Spirits semi-annual tasting and sale. They also do one in late fall, for your holiday wine shopping. There is a VIP hour before the proletariat are allowed in, with special VIP wines to taste. In contrast to the DC Wine & Food Festival (see my rant about this in an earlier post), this tasting event is less expensive ($65 VIP/$40 Grand Tasting) and better managed.
The room is small, and it's always too warm, but it's large enough. There's food available just outside the tasting room--cheeses, grapes, breads and crackers. Each participant gets a WTA tasting glass. These are very nice crystal glasses, a good size, and a much better alternative to the small, heavy glasses they've used for the past two years at the DC WFF. The only drawbacks to these WTA glasses are that they are rather fragile, and IMO too light and slightly unbalanced as a result.
Overall it was a nice tasting. During the VIP hour the participants were for the most part courteous and allowed other participants to squeeze in to the tables and get a sample of wine. I did have a mildly unpleasant exchange with one of the reps pouring samples. She opened a new bottle of a wine I wanted to taste, and then she smelled the cork. I suggested that it's better to smell the wine in the bottle, and she replied that she's a wine professional (as if I'm not!) and she knows what a corked wine smells like by smelling the cork. I didn't bother to argue with her, but as a wine professional she should know that there are many other faults that can be present in a bottle of wine, and none of the other faults can be detected by smelling the cork. And sometimes you can have a really gnarly, moldy cork (usually with older wines) and the wine in the bottle is perfectly fine. As my friend Lynne likes to say, smelling the cork is just about as effective as holding the cork up to your ear and listening to it!
Although this blog is about wine, not about wines, I do have to single out one of the wines I tasted at the event. It was the Ch. Doisy-Daene Grand Vin Sec, Bordeaux 2006. I'm very familiar with the Ch. Doisy-Daene Sauternes with it's honey notes, silky texture and clean mineral finish. I didn't note the name on the label until after I tasted it. It was a "wow!" wine. The nose was intense yet layered and complex and on the palate it was exceptional. Then I noted the name of the chateau and expressed my surprise. Brett, the rep from Elite wines, was delighted that I was familiar with the Sauternes from the same chateau, and he was also delighted that I liked the Bordeaux and recognized its high quality. He told me that the wine spent a long time on the lees but saw no oak.
I deemed the Elite VIP wines (there were 3) the best selection of the tasting, and the Ch. Doisy-Daene the "best in show." Even during the VIP hour, there were many participants who shunned the whites in favor of the reds. I often find that the white wines at events like this are the real sleepers and should not be missed. In the case of the Ch. Doisy-Daene, this was certainly the case.
I wonder what fabulous surprises are in store for the tasting in the fall?
