Comments on: California Wine all tastes the same? Says who?

By: winecase

winecase — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 22:26:30 +0000

I should specify that I was specifically pointing out the sauvignon blancs, and that I had interesting and even excellent wines in the other categories: an Isabel Estate pinot gris, Carrick and Mt Difficulty pinot noirs, as well as a Hans Estate cabernet/merlot that was just terrific.

Ron, you have a point in terms of general availability on the market, but there were close to 60 different (so to speak) sauvignons blancs at that particular tasting, so I imagine that it must be at least somewhat representative. Only one of the SBs, from Gunn Estates, really stepped away from the mold, as far as my palate and I were concerned. In other cases, I’ve had many successful treasure hunts for riesling, chardonnay and pinot from New Zealand.

By: Ron McFarland

Ron McFarland — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 21:37:42 +0000

Finding the gems from New Zealand can be a bit of a treasure hunt. Imagine trying only the grocery store wines from California and calling it representative of what is in California.

By: artpredator

artpredator — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:10:00 +0000

Hey Remy, thanks for adding me to your blogroll!

Like you, I was impressed by the side by side tasting of all those Dry Creek Valley zins and how much varierty they showed (I was fond of the Nalle also!).

Unlike you, I found there were some of those NZ that I really liked and some I didn’t. There were a number of yes ok grapefruit once again and ok here’s grassy…but some of them did it much better than others, I thought, and I have to say a number of them were bland and flat. The Kim Crawford, with all its Parker points and which is the only one available to me locally, didn’t do it for me. (I liked Saint Clair Pioneer Block a lot). I went to the NZ tasting on Monday at Spago in LA; David Strada had a couple of different wines there than at WBC. One in particular which impressed me was a 2004 gewurz by Vinoptima.