Thursday, February 3, 2011

A successful 2010 preview tasting

Just returned from a very successful preview showing the of the barrel samples we hauled back from Germany last week. We brought 24 wines from 22 different estates, everything from dry Gewurztraminer, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Scheurebe, and Pinot Noir, to Rieslings from dry to Kabinett to Spatlese. Needless to say, the wines were stunning and our guests, restauranteurs and quality wine merchants, sommeliers and Master Sommeliers alike were all very impressed with the 2010 white wines and roses and the 2009 and 2008 Pinot Noirs.

Rudi Wiest presided over the tasting, having just flown in that morning from New York City, where he had done this same preview tasting on Monday. He had been up since 3 am EST, or 12 midnight PST, and yet he was full of energy, as usual, discussing the wines he loves.

A special thank you to our host Randi at our venue, Bottle Rock in Culver City. Beautiful glassware that did our wines justice, a terrific lunch that hit the spot, and everything about the tasting was well timed, which is just so very important.

Not sure which wines people loved the most, but from what I heard, these were some wines that got oohs and ahhhs:

2010 Dr. F. Weins-Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese

2008 Rebholz Pinot Noir tradition

2009 Furst Pinot Noir tradition

2010 Von Buhl Pinot Noir Rose

2010 Pfeffingen Scheurebe trocken (dry)

2010 Pfeffingen Gewurztraminer trocken (dry)

2010 Zilliken Saarburger Rausch Riesling Kabinett