I’ve mentioned this event twice and have promised to write a more comprehensive review. I’m happy to say that I’ve been very busy but have not forgotten my promise.

Given that I tasted well in excess of 100 wines that day my notes are obviously not too thorough, but I did note which wines were of most interest to me.

Going simply in order of table number, let’s start with Peay Vineyards. Peay is not a winery I was familiar with before the tasting, but it will be one I’ll be keeping an eye out for, especially as I get deeper into wine bar planning. Sadly, the prices for Peay wines are quite high. Beginning with their ’06 “Sonoma Coast Estate” Chardonnnay, I found very nice subtle oak combined with nice citrus notes and fresh crisp flavors. It had a very nice acidic structure and a pleasant and relatively long finish. I also found their ’06 Estate “Scallop Shelf” Pinot Noir to be one of the more subtle & elegant Pinots will nice minerality and earthiness and a very nice finish. And finally the Peay 2005 “La Bruma” Estate Syrah, which I was told came from a very cool Syrah site, was also not a fruit bomb like some of the other Syrah’s I tried. Rather it had lots of fruit on the nose but was very subtle, elegant and round on the palate. Great stuff. (more…)