Restaurants in Alaska

I was fortunate enough to sit down with 24 of the area’s most respected palates for a comparative blind tasting of 6 different wines.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term blind tasting, it is a series of wines tasted by a panel with minimal, if any information about the wines given to them.  In this case, these were all 2005 Meritage style wines of great reputation and that is the only information we were given.  Assembled by David Crane of Heck Estates, whom represents Valley of the Moon.  We all figured somewhere in the mix would be their flagship Cuvee de la Luna.  Sure enough, David explains that he has thrown that wine in.  However, he explains to us he doesn’t expect his wine to finish first, nor second, but rather to show that his wine can hang with some of the most prestigious wines available from Napa Valley. 

After his introduction the tasting began.  Given 30 minutes for 6 wines, we plowed through each, picking up on all the nuances they had to offer, jotting down tasting notes, and assigning a numerical score from 1 to 6 with 1 being our favorite and 6 being our least.  The hardest part about this was not to figure out which were good and which weren’t, but to pick out only 1 as our favorite.  They were all fantastic!  We finished, he tallied the scores, and out came the results. 

In order from least favorite to the wine of the night from all 25 panelists:

Wine#6: ‘05 Chateau St. Jean Cinq Cepages-Retails around $50; critic review:88pts 

Wine #5: ‘05 Dominus Estate-Retails around$130;  critic reviews   89pts and 95pts

Wine #4:’05 Valley of the Moon Cuvee de la Luna-Retails around $28; no critic reviews

Wine #3: ‘05 Cain Winery Cain 5-Retails around $100; no critic reviews

Wine #2: ‘05 Opus One-Retails around $175; critic reviews 90pts and 95pts

Wine #1: ‘05 Flora Springs Trilogy-Retails around $65; critic reviews 82pts and 93pts                            

As you can see, a great lineup without a bad one in the bunch.  Results were unanimous from to to bottom.  You may also note the gap between some of the critic’s scores.  Any relevance to the last article written?  I think this clearly shows when you gather a group of people with a group of wines that are unknown, the honest opinion shines through.  Points aside, names aside, and most importantly, price aside, these all were fantastic wines.  This is the significance of blind tasting. 

For my complete tasting notes on these 6 wines, please visit http://www.cellartracker.com/event.asp?iEvent=6859.

 *All wines were provided by Mr. Crane for this comparative venue.  The wines were opened and poured by 3 neutral tasters not participating in the event.  Dollar value given to the wines were taken from local market value as well as a national average.