This past June, the California Wine Institute’s Next Wave Sessions culminated in a tasting and dinner at Chateau Montelena in Calistoga. Bo and Heidi Barrett hosted the Wine Institute’s international group from 14 countries in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. All were leaders in their wine communities, including a bevy of MWs and MSs. Honore Comfort at the Wine Institute and Evan Goldstein MS, Next Wave Sessions master of ceremonies, had asked me to organize and lead the tasting.
Evan and I discussed a reimagining of the 1976 Paris Tasting, which we built with four Chardonnay–, and four Cabernet Sauvignon–based wines. In each case, one producer from France and California was in the original 1976 Paris Tasting. To select the second wine in each category, we polled the group in advance to get their opinions about leaders in these categories of California wine who have emerged since 1976. We also researched such possibilities in Burgundy and Bordeaux, then selected one representative from each category. The Wine Institute sourced current vintages of each wine.
The pourers placed the wines in random order, then presented them, blind, in numbered glasses. The tasters could guess the likely varietal makeup of the wines based on the 1976 Paris Tasting; Evan and I were the only tasters who knew the identities of the wines, though we did not know the order.
We asked each of the 48 participants to write down the first three words that came to mind when they tasted the wine, to provide their immediate reaction without thinking about or analyzing it. I then fed these words to Claude.ai, which created word clouds for each wine, emphasizing the most cited descriptions in larger letters.
We also asked the tasters to rank the wines from one through four, one being their top rank. So 48 points would be a sweep, and overall, the lower the tally, the more highly ranked. It may be most statistically relevant to consider how many #1 rankings each wine received. The wines, listed below in order of presentation, show the group’s preference for Montelena among the Chardonnays and Léoville-Las-Cases among the reds. (The Montelena tallies do not include votes from Bo Barrett or Heidi Peterson Barrett.)
- Kistler 2023 Russian River Valley Vine Hill Vineyard Chardonnay
Total #1 Ranks: 10 (Vote tally: 99)
- Joseph Drouhin 2022 Beaune Clos des Mouches
Total #1 Ranks: 13 (Vote tally: 100)
- Chateau Montelena 2023 Napa Valley Chardonnay
Total #1 Ranks: 17 (Vote tally: 86); Top Performance in White
- Patrick Piuze 2023 Chablis Premier Cru Vaulorent
Total #1 Ranks: 3 (Vote tally: 145)
- Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte 2021 Péssac-Leognan
Total #1 Ranks: 9 (Vote tally: 117)
- Château Léoville-Las-Cases 2020 St-Julien
Total #1 Ranks: 20 (Vote tally: 91); Top Performance in Red
- Stags Leap Wine Cellars 2023 Napa Valley Cask 23 Cabernet Sauvignon
Total #1 Ranks: 5 (Vote tally: 135)
- Dominus Estate 2023 Napa Valley
Total #1 Ranks: 11 (Vote tally: 129)
Personal Takes on the Blind Tasting
To introduce the tasting, Evan Goldstein recalled working in Paris in 1978, and how the French had gotten word about California wines by then. “Recently, I’ve been hearing they make some very good wine in California,” one shop owner told him. He ran into fellow sommeliers who were increasingly curious about California wines. Speaking of the impact the 1976 Paris Tasting had on him personally, Goldstein looked back to 1984, when his mother, Joyce, and he opened up Square One in San Francisco. “It was my mission to take the wave of what California was [in Paris] and bring it here.” Now, he’d helped put this tasting together in Calistoga, fifty years after the Paris event. Here is some commentary from the guests, before the identities of the wines were revealed.
Fabrice Sommier was the only Frenchman in the room. He’s the sommelier at La Maison des Atelier in Paris and the president of the Union de la Sommellerie Française. Asked to describe the four whites, he commented on how impressed he was by the power and freshness of the wines he’d been tasting in California. To him, the first two wines [Kistler and Drouhin] focused on richness, while the third and fourth wines [Montelena and Piuze] had “a fresh point of acidity.”
Kat Wojcik, based in San Francisco, is the director of programs and partnerships for IHG Hotels and Resorts. She approached the tasting looking for benchmarks, and nailed Montelena as a benchmark California chardonnay. The Piuze left her confused – it was the ringer in the group, being from Chablis. “Josh is tricky,” was her take on it. “I’m not sure where it’s from.”
Yang Lu, the first Chinese Master Sommelier in the world, took a different tack. In the tasting, allowed only three words to describe the wines, he decided to compare them to music. “The first wine [Kistler] is glamour rock, more the fruit, very showy wine. The second wine [Drouhin], a melody, more subtle, more story to tell. The third wine [Montelena], more jazzy, not heavy or loud jazz, but very quiet. The last one [Piuze] is more classical, more matured, lots of different instruments.”
By the time we got to the reds, the wine may have been having its impact, as responses from a very professional group became more personal.
Piotr Pietras, a Master Sommelier from Warsaw, started a riff on anthropomorphizing the wines. “I divided the wines into fictional characters,” he explained when asked to place the reds within a paradigm. “Wine number 5 [Smith Haut Lafitte] is the most Silent Guy in the room, a bit more restrained, elegant, balanced, doesn’t want to talk too much. Wine number 6 [Léoville Las Cases] is The Guy. He belongs to the family and screams, ‘I belong to the Cab family.’ There’s a lot of bell pepper; it’s pyrazine driven, clearly cabernet-dominated wine. Wine number 7 [SLWC Cask 23] is the Macho Guy, powerful, extracted, full of vigor, definitely the most fruit-driven wine out of all. Wine number 8 [Dominus] is the Pretty Guy. Fruit-driven with a bit of spiciness from the oak, close to the Silent Guy.”
Victoria Mulu-Munywoki, the first Kenyan native sommelier, went a step further, describing the reds as if she were giving advice on potential boyfriends: “The first wine [Smith Haut Lafitte] was delicate, lush fruit, fruit forward. Youthful, with some immature tannins. The second wine [Léoville Las Cases] had arrived, a self-assured structured wine. Harmonious. Three [SLWC Cask 23] was distinct, its savory tannins well integrated with the dark fruit. Showing off beautifully now and would be highly rewarding in the future. That’s the guy: Marry him. Four [Dominus] was a wine that was taking its time, did not want to be rushed, was confident that it would last for a very long time. Robust, confident, momentous wine. Have a look at his bank account before you commit.”
Speaking after the dinner, Veronique Rivest, proprietor of Soif Bar à Vin in Gatineau, Québec, pointed out the dangers of blind tasting as she recalled being a bit brash when called on to describe the reds. “I remember very well calling one slutty and being terrified right after saying so that maybe it was the Montelena!” (Bo Barrett was there at the next table, but, as it turned out, his wine was not in the flight.) She also remembered following up on Victoria’s boyfriend advice, but, in her case, she hoped to claim wine six [Léoville-Las-Cases] as her betrothed.
Great wrap here, Josh! Thanks for the intel.
Thanks Mike – great to get to spend some time with you in California!