The Burgundy Club: Regina's Wine Tasting Group

Date	Theme
Mar 6, 2004	Return of the Blind Tastings
Jan 6, 2004	Vive le Bordeaux!
Summer BBQ	Wine, BBQ, and Good Times
Feb 22, 2003	Lesser Known Treasures
Nov 16, 2002	Stacking up the Red Wine Favorites
July 28, 2002	Garage Top BBQ and BYOW Tasting
April 20, 2002	Wines of France
Jan 26, 2002	Red or White? (A Blind Taste Test)
Nov 24, 2001	That's Amore! (Italian night)
Mar 10, 2001	Noble Red Wines
Jan 13, 2001	5 Course Potluck Dinner
Sept 30, 2000	Noble White Wines
Jul 22, 2000	Summer BBQ and BYOW Tasting
Mar 18, 2000	Introduction to Wine Tasting

Return of the Blind Wine Tastings

Wine/Producer	Vintage	Region/Country	Varietal
Canyon Road Sauvignon Blanc	2002	Northern, California	Sauvignon Blanc
Pelee Island Gewürztraminer	2002	Pelee Island, Ontario	Gewürztraminer
Pelee Island Pinot Noir	2002	Pelee Island, Ontario	Pinot Noir
Naoussa Boutari	2001	Greece	Xinomavro
Wyndham Estate Bin555 Shiraz	2001	South Eastern Australia	Shiraz

See what other things Dave was smelling...

Vive le Bordeaux!

Specialized Bordeaux Wine Tasting - details to come.

Summer BBQ

Our 3rd annual summer BBQ/wine tasting was much too wild to describe on this page. That as well as the RCMP would not allow our camera into their holding cells.

February 22, 2003 - Lesser Known Treasures

We've all heard of Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Riesling, and even sampled many of these classics at BurgundyClub wine tastings. However have you ever heard of Malbec, Colombard, Muscadet or even a Troirçois? (ok, I admit I made up the last one, but the others really exist). The focus of this wine tasting was to help us determine whether these lesser known wines are oddballs or simply treasures waiting to be discovered !

Since these wines are a little out of the ordinary, some additional reading material was suggested. Specialized websites existed for each of the selected wines so apparently these wines aren't completely unknown:

Carménère
Viognier
Malbec
Colombard
Muscadet

Wine/Producer	Vintage	Region/Country	Varietal	Rating
Rivercrest Colombard	2001	Modesto, California	Colombard	# ?
Les Ormeaux Sauvion Muscadet	2001	Loire Valley, France	Melon de bourgogne	# ?
Fetzer Barrel Select Viognier	1999	Mendocino County, California	Viognier	# ?
Sunrise Carménère	2002	Central Valley, Chile	Carménère	# ?
Elsa Malbec	1999	San Rafael, Argentina	Malbec	# ?

Learning from Experience
Ever find yourself without the right words to describe the wine that you are tasting? "Geez, this tastes fruity but 'what' type of fruit is it?". Of course something that would help jog your memory is a list of terms such as blackberry, raspberry, pear .... this tasting we included a couple of wine terminology terms:

Scott Miller's American Journal of Enology and Viticulture
Stratsplace's one stop page

Which red treasure is in this glass?

November 16, 2002 - Stacking up the Red Wine Favorites

How would your favorite red wine fair in a "taste off" against other member's red wines? Would they like it as much as you do? What if you didn't know which wine was yours and couldn't vote for your own? Here's a tasting with a twist of tin foil . . . Attendees brought their favorite red wine - concealed - to the wine tasting (no, we didn't end up drinking out of a brown paper bag). Each person then tin foiled their wine bottle leaving only the top sticking out. The bottles were opened and samples were served out of the concealed "foiled" bottle.

Using our new tasting notes form (courtesy of www.wineskinny.com) we rated each of the 5 wines. Scores were then tallied, the wines revealed from their encasing, and a winner declared. By sheer coincidence 4 out of the 5 wines were merlots:

Wine/Producer

Region/Country

Varietal

Place

Mission Hill Vintners Select

Canada

Merlot

# 4

Rothschild Merlot

Languedoc, France

Merlot

# 3

Robert Mondavi Costal Cabernet Sauvignon
California Cabernet Sauvignon
# 2

Mission Ridge Merlot
Canada
Merlot

# 5

Wolf Blass Merlot
(Blue Label)

Australia

Merlot

#1

And the winner was. . . . the Wolf Blass Merlot. Congratulations to Sherry and Jeff who brought the wine and won 1st prize: a bottle of Chateau Villemaurine a Grand Cru Classé of Saint Emilion (this wine is so fancy it even has its own dedicated website)

We were so busy tasting that we only took a handful of pictures

July 28, 2002 - Garage Top BBQ and BYOW Tasting

A Sunday evening BBQ, not a typical night for a wine tasting - then again neither was the location. High atop a garage was the location of this years Summer BBQ. In keeping with tradition, our summer wine tasting was a casual affair: bring a lawn chair (or in this case, a garage patio chair), a good bottle of wine, food to BBQ and socialize!

The evening started off with a few rain drops, but it quickly cleared up and stayed warm. Janice found out the hard way that those folding lawn chairs with the built in cup holders weren't designed to hold wine glasses. As the sun began to set the "mood lights" (patio lanterns) were turned on which afforded us a few more hours outside. Mosquitoes weren't too bad and the night was capped off by Pile 'o Bones annual fireworks. Thanks to Michael for being such a great host!

Tasting pictures to come...

April 20, 2002 - Wines of France

The basis: you pick a wine region in France, do a little research, present the key information along with a wine that represents what you've researched!

The outcome: actually, it worked out pretty good. Until the person researching the Champagne region brought in the can-can dancing girls. Wait... I digress - no dancing girls. Actually, the Champagne region was one of regions not covered. Regions and wines covered were:

Wine/Producer	Vintage	Region/Country	Varietal	Rating
Hugel Gewurztraminer	2000	Alsace, France	Gewurztraminer	Okay
Cote du Venture	1999	Rhone Valley, France	Grenache & Syrah and blend	Okay
Domain du Minortre (?) Jacque Lurton	1999	Southern France	Grenache & Syrah Blend	Good
Cote du Brouilly George Bu Boeuf	1998	Beaujolais, France	Gamay	Okay
Chateau La Tour-Martillac	1998	Pessac - Leognan, Bordeaux, France	Semillon and Sanvignon	Good

Tasting pictures to come...

January 26, 2002 - Red or White? A Blind Taste Test

Red or white? it's pretty obvious, especially when you're looking through a wine glass. However, to give ourselves a bit of a challenge, each taster was blind-folded and then given a several wines to sample. The primary goal was to guess whether the wine was white or red. Was it as easy as it sounds? For the most part. With the exception of a "red" disguising itself as a white, we were able to correctly guess the color based mostly on the nose with definite confirmation on taste. Bonus points were given to those who could correctly guess which grape variety the wine was made from. This proved to be much more challenging.

Point Scheme (while blind folded):

Nose: red or white 2 points

Taste: red or white 1 point

Bonus: grape variety 3 points

Total 6 points

(our tasting score sheet)

Due to a number of last minute cancellations it was a smaller than usual tasting. However as the saying goes "Good things come in small packages". It turns out that this particular type of tasting probably worked better with a small group of people. The smaller number gave us more opportunity to concentrate on the wines that we were tasting rather than rush to the next one or worry about hosting activities! Below are the wines that we "blindly" tasted:

Wine/Producer	Vintage	Region/Country	Varietal
Dunnewood Pinot Noir	1998	North Coast, California	Pinot Noir
Pelee Island Gewürztraminer	2000	Pelee Island, Ontario	Gewürztraminer
Jeanjean Arabesque Syrah Rose	2000	Languedoc, France	Syrah Rose
Remy Pannier Anjou	2000	France	Chenin Blanc
Wolf Blass Merlot (Blue Label)	2000	Australia	Merlot

Note: the Merlot was not really part of the wine tasting. We brought it out as a last minute wine to try to trick one of our participants. (Sorry Chris!)

Being blindfolded certainly added a new dimension to the tasting. We found that without the visual distractions we were able to pick up the subtle characteristics in the wine. Can you believe that we actually smelled "damp earth"! It also helped up to have our tasting partner read off key characteristics (word doc) to help us decide on the grape.

Take off your blindfold to see the pictures

November 24, 2001 - That's Amore! (Italian night)

Italy is the world's largest producer of wine and as such we felt that it was time to pay Italian wines some attention. Unlike the New World wines of the United States, Australia, or Chile, Italian wines cannot be explained in relation to their French counterparts. The grape varieties grown in Italy are vastly different from those grown in France. However, like France, Italian wine is labeled according to geographic origin rather than grape variety. This tasting concentrated on the three main wine producing regions of Italy: Piedmont, Veneto and Tuscany.

Wine/Producer	Vintage	Region/Country	Varietal	Rating
Riunite Lambrusco	so cheap it didn't have one!	Italy	Table Wine	Okay
Fazi-Battaglia Verdicchio	1999	Marches, Italy	Verdicchio	Poor
Masi	1999	Veneto, Italy	Corvina and Raboso blends	Good
Bolla Soave Classico	2000	Veneto, Italy	Garganega and Trebbiano blends	Okay-Good
Nipozzano Chianti Rufina	1997	Tuscany, Italy	Sangiovese	Good
Fontanafredda Barolo	1996	Piedmont, Italy	Nebbiolo	Good

Our Italian "fast facts" wine information sheet (word doc).

Osservare le immagini (view the pictures)

March 10, 2001 - Noble Red Wines

A follow up to a previous tasting, Noble White Grapes, the purpose of this tasting was to introduce the major grapes used to make red wine. Selecting only a few noble red grapes proved to be a bit more challenging than selecting the noble whites due to the fact that there are significantly more varieties of red grapes. However, we narrowed the selection based on familiarity, popularity and availability. The result was the following 5 varietals:

Wine/Producer	Vintage	Region/Country	Varietal	Rating
Dunnewood Pinot Noir	1997	North Coast, California	Pinot Noir	Good
Santa Rita Merlot	1999	Buin, Chile	Merlot	Good
Joseph Drouhin Beaujolais Villages	1999	Beaujolais, France	Gamay	Okay
Brolio Chianti Classico	1998	Chianti, Italy	Sangiovese	Good
Fetzer Valley Oaks	1997	California	Cabernet Sauvignon	Excellent

Things you should know about Noble Red Wines (word doc).

Check out the "Noble" pictures

January 13, 2001 - 5 Course Potluck Dinner

What wine goes with which food? well, we really had no idea, so why not learn more about it !! This wine tasting focused on the paring of food with wine. The challenge? each couple was responsible for bringing one course (appetizer, soup, salad, main course, or dessert), and an accompanying bottle of wine. No easy connection here except for maybe chicken and white wine, but the hosts had the main course (so too bad). Research had to be done. . . .

Changing things up a bit, we didn't do an "official" rate the wine using our corresponding 5-point score sheet. Simply, we experimented with the connection between wine and food - and found some beautiful surprises ! Unfortunately one of our courses cancelled at the last minute, so we were down to a four course meal. However, there remaining courses were delicious and had excellent matching wines:

1. Appetizer - Chandra & Kristin
Food Course: Cheese Crab Dip
Wine Course: Robert Mondavi Chardonnay

2. Soup
Food Course: cancelled
Wine Course: cancelled

3. Salad - Jeff
Food Course: Shrimp Salad with Cucumber Dressing
Wine Course: Piesporter Treppchen Riesling

3. Main Course - Sherry
Food Course: Chicken Phyllo Bundles with Herbed Sabayon
Wine Course: Mystic Cliffs Chardonnay

5. Dessert - Dave & Candide
Food Course: Trifle
Wine Course: Vidal Icewine

Wine/Producer	Vintage	Region/Country	Varietal
Robert Mondavi Chardonnay	1996	Napa Valley, California	Chardonnay
Piesporter Treppchen Riesling	1998	Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Germany	Riesling
Mystic Cliffs Chardonnay	1997	California	Chardonnay
Vidal Icewine	1998	Niagara Peninsula, Ontario	Riesling

Check out the pictures

September 30, 2000 - Noble White Wines
The purpose of this tasting was to introduce the three major grapes prominent in white wine. These are: Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. We explored the characteristics of each and contrasted the differences by tasting the same variety from different countries.

New at this tasting, we introduced a 5-point score sheet. The 5 main attributes of wine tasting (color, nose, taste, finish and overall score) were rated on a 5-point scale (Bad, Poor, Okay, Good or Excellent). The new scoring scheme simplified rating and enabled us to easily determine a group rating for the wines we tasted.

Wine/Producer	Vintage	Region/Country	Varietal	Rating
Bereich Bernkastel Riesling	1996	Mosel Saar Ruwer, Germany	Riesling	Good
Dopff-Au-Moulin	1998	Alsace, France	Riesling	Poor
Henri Bourgeios Pouilly-Fume	1998	Loire Valley, France	Sauvignon Blanc	Poor - Okay
Bouchard Aine & Fils Macon-Villages	1997	Burgundy, France	Chardonnay	Okay
Canyon Road Chardonnay	1998	California, USA	Chardonnay	Good

July 22, 2000 - Summer BBQ & BYOW Tasting
Although this was our second tasting, it was the first official gathering of the newly established Burgundy Club. We surprised our members with membership cards and the launch of the Burgundy Club website.

The tasting itself was very casual, with everybody bringing his or her favorite bottle of wine and something to cook on the BBQ. The tasting, turned party, was a success and a great time was had by all.

Wine/Producer	Vintage	Region/Country	Varietal
Schmitt Sohne Riesling	1998	Mosel Saar Ruwer, Germany	Riesling
Turning Leaf White Zinfandel	1998	Modesto, California	White Zinfandel
Jackson-Triggs Chardonnay	1999	BC, Canada	Chardonnay
Caliterra Merlot	1998	Chile	Merlot
Ecco Domani Cabernet Sauvignon	1998	Italy	Cabernet Sauvignon
Wolf Blass South Australian Shiraz	1997	Australia	Shiraz
Dunnewood Zinfandel	1996	Mendocino, California	Zinfandel