What a great experience. I recently was a judge at the above named event held on Mt. Hood, at the Timberline Lodge. There were twenty judges from around the country broken into panels of four each. Members rotated panels and we had some time to discuss wines after personal evaluations.
Wines were from Or, WA, ID, MT, Alberta and BC. What was cool was there were so many unusual wines: lembergers, ehrenfelsers, tempranillos, kerners. And Italian varietals were coming on strong; I had not thought of the Northwest as a good area for these red grapes. But was I wrong!
The overall quality of the wines was good and we had over 1200 hundred to sample in five tasting sessions. Judges were educators, winemakers, academics, retailers and restaurant professionals. We had a vibrant cross section of people and the rotation system all but guaranteed a fresh perspective for everyone when judging.
Surprises for me wre the quality levels of the Italian and Spanish grapes. There were some delightful muscat frizzantes (just in time for summer), excellent sparkling wines, well made fortifieds (although when will New World wineries stop using the European name Port for their fortified wines?), coomplex ice wines and some well made Rhone blends, both white and red.
Some problems arose with excessive brettanomyces aromas and flavors as well as some high levels of volatile acidity. But for the most part, the wines displayed a growing sense of quality, professionalism and well tended vineyards. This event highlighted what a world class region the Northwest is.
See the following link for continuing reports and updates on these wines.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment