{"id":10,"date":"2007-09-11T18:26:11","date_gmt":"2007-09-11T18:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kenswineguide.com\/blog\/?p=10"},"modified":"2007-09-11T18:49:26","modified_gmt":"2007-09-11T18:49:26","slug":"a-tale-of-two-wine-tastings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/?p=10","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Two Wine Tastings"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fritz<\/span>“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” * or at least that is how it felt as the <\/span>KensWineGuide.com Tasting panel got together for 2 Blind Chardonnay tastings over the last couple of weeks. <\/span>The first tasting was on Friday, August 31st<\/sup>. <\/span>On that night we tried 15 wines that cost $18 or more. <\/span>On Friday, September 7th<\/sup> we tried 18 wines that cost $18 or less. <\/span>The two tastings could not have been more different. <\/span>In the first tasting we recommended 10 wines out of 15 that qualified as being “Very Good” or better. <\/span>We are even pretty certain that 1 of the 5 that didn’t make it was a bad bottle, not a bad wine. <\/span>So we had quite a successful tasting! <\/span>As for the second tasting, the results were very disappointing. <\/span>The panel could only recommend 2 wines as “Very Good.” <\/span>8 of the remaining 16 wines were classified as Good and the remaining 8 were below that standard. <\/span>Does that mean that you have to spend more than $18 to get a Very Good bottle of Chardonnay? <\/span>I would say the answer is maybe. <\/span>It certainly increases your chances of getting a Very Good bottle. <\/span>However, let us remind you that Kendall Jackson consistently makes a very solid “Vintners Reserve” Chardonnay priced at $10-$14 depending on where you live. <\/span>So it can be done.<\/font><\/p>\n

\"ScherrerSo what were the results? <\/span>In our first tasting, the winner was the 2006 Fritz “Ruxton”<\/strong><\/a> from the Russian River Valley. <\/span>This wine was a terrific Chardonnay for $35. <\/span>It earned a Very Good+ (91.4) score from our panel. <\/span>If you like creamy Chardonnay, find one of these beauties and indulge yourself with this treat. <\/span>In second place was another Russian River Chardonnay. <\/span>This wine was the 2004 Scherrer Winery “Helfer Vineyard” Chardonnay<\/a><\/strong> for $40. <\/span>This wine was equally as yummy and also grabbed a Very Good + score of (90.1). <\/span>The unfortunate thing about this wine is that there were only 68 cases made and they are all gone. <\/span>Third place went to the Robert Stemmler winery. <\/span>The 2005 Robert Stemmler “Estate Grown” Chardonnay<\/a><\/strong> $36 from Carneros also scored a Very Good+ score of (90.0). <\/span>Our 4th<\/sup> place finisher was from\"Talley Talley in Arroyo Grande, CA. <\/span>This is an up and coming region. <\/span>The 2005 Talley “Estate”<\/a><\/strong> for $26 scored an (89.5) from the panel. <\/span>Handley Cellars took 5th<\/sup> place with their 2005 “Handley Vineyard” Chardonnay<\/a><\/strong> $20 from the Dry Creek Valley. <\/span>This wine was the best deal (value price) of the first tasting at $20.<\/font><\/p>\n

The other Top 10 finishers were as follows:<\/font><\/p>\n

#6 2005 Thelma “Thelema Mtn” <\/strong><\/a>(Stellenbosch, S. Africa), $25 (88.75)<\/font>
\n#7 2006 Fritz<\/strong> <\/a>(Russian River Valley, CA), $25 (88.6)<\/font>
\n#8 2005 White Oak “25th Anniversary”<\/a><\/strong> (Russian River, CA), $23 (88.0)<\/font>
\n#9 2005 Landmark “Overlook”<\/a><\/strong> (CA), $26 (87.6)<\/font>
\n#10 2005 Handley “Estate Vineyard”<\/a><\/strong> (Anderson Valley), $20 (87.0)<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

In tasting #2 our two winners both came from South Africa. <\/span>The best deal of both tastings was the 2006 Indaba Chardonnay<\/a><\/strong>. <\/span>This wine scored an (87.60) or Very Good. <\/span>At $9 per bottle this was our best value priced Chardonnay from both tastings. <\/span>In second place, was the 2005 Buitenverwaching from Constantia, South Africa<\/a><\/strong>. <\/span>At $18 per bottle this wine could have been in the first tasting. <\/span>It finished with a score of Very Good (87.57).<\/font><\/p>\n

We hope you can find some of these gems and enjoy them this fall.<\/font><\/p>\n

Cheers,<\/font><\/p>\n

The KensWineGuide.com Tasting Panel<\/font><\/p>\n

* <\/font>Charles Dickens<\/font><\/span><\/a>, A Tale of Two Cities English novelist (1812 – 1870)<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” * or at least that is how it felt as the KensWineGuide.com Tasting panel got together for 2 Blind Chardonnay tastings over the last couple of weeks. The first tasting was on Friday, August 31st. On that night we tried 15 wines that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chardonnay","category-kens-wine-guide-tasting-panel"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenswineguide.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}