Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving

I've been absent from the wine world, spending most of my time hunting dragons in Skyrim, but I wanted to do something wine related over the long holiday weekend. I thought it would be nice to have Ted and Shannon over. Checking schedules, mostly theirs, we determined that the night before Thanksgiving was the only night that would work. I wanted to taste red Burgundies. Ted suggested giving Petite Syrahs a try. I put the choice to Sue, and she decided on Petite Syrah.

I picked up four bottles from K&L that I had never tasted. The website only had a choice of 59, of which only 16 were available at the Redwood City store. I had to limit it to the store, since I wanted to pick the wine up that day and didn't have any time for transportation. The choice compared to Pinots, for example, was incredibly limited; 356 Pinots were available at the Redwood City store.

Ted and Shannon arrived with 2 bottles. We pulled out the Pinot glasses and got everything set up. Sitting down in front of 6 beautiful glasses of wines ready to taste fills me with excitement, though I imagine I'd feel differently if we didn't have a dishwasher.

We all tasted, sharing our experiences. We shared our initial scores, and then tasted again, adjusting our scores accordingly. Ted and I bet that one of our wines would come out on top.

Results

Top to Bottom from Left to Right

F - 2008 Rutherford Grove, Napa Valley, Spring Creek Vineyard tied for first place with an average rating of 3.5. Ted and Shannon brought this bottle. Ted estimated it cost $37.

B - 2006 Consilience, La Presa Vineyard, Santa Barbara County tied for first place with an average rating of 3.5. Ted and Shannon also brought this bottle. Ted estimated it cost $23.

C - 2003 Robert Foley, Napa Valley came in third place with an average rating of 3.25. It cost $50 from K&L. Sue and I brought this. It was one of the four unknowns I chose from K&L because it had a 92 from Robert Parker.

D - 2005 Turley, Library Vinyard, Napa Valley came in third place with an average rating of 2.88. It cost $70 from K&L. Sue and I brought this. It was one of the four unknowns I chose from K&L because it was the most expensive one they had and it had a good rating from Robert Parker.

E - 2009 Ridge, Lytton Estate, Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County came in fourth place with an average rating of 2.38. It cost $28 from K&L. Sue and I brought this. It was one of the four unknowns I chose from K&L because Ridge is a known winery that we like.

A - 2008 Stag's Leap, Napa Valley came in fifth place with an average rating of 1.88. It cost $30 from K&L. Sue and I brought this. It was one of the four unknowns I chose from K&L because Stag's Leap is a known winery and we really like their Artemis.

The Results in Ted's Trademarked Format

Summary

Petite Syrah can be saturating. None of the wines we tried really worked for me, the highest score I gave was a 3.5. I'll stick with my old favorites for now.

Epilogue

After we were done, Sue brought out a wonderful dinner: Shrimp and crab enchiladas, chicken nachos, salad, and corn bread. It doesn't take meals like this to remind me how lucky I am, but they do stand out.

Ted was saturated with Petite Syrah and said he would drink something lighter, if anything was open. I pulled out a big gun, a 2007 Burrell School PTA Pinot, thinking I would stump him. Unbelievably, Ted sensed it was a 2007 Burrell. Amazing! I wanted to foil him, so I pulled out another, a 2007 Gary Farrell Pinot and went double or nothing on the $5 I owed him. He was stumped. He first thought it might be a Windy Oak's, but his final guess was a Nicholson Pinot. He may have brought the wine's that tied for first place, but he was unable to determine the second glass I had tried to stump him with. Ha!