Those of you that have been following along here might have caught wind of the fact that I went to the Society of Wine Educator’s Conference in Providence, RI a couple of weeks ago. I don’t believe that I mentioned it at the time but myself and a colleague, Miss Meaghan, enjoyed ourselves so much that we decided we wanted to present at next year’s conference which will be help in San Mateo, CA. The theme of our presentation will be Virginia wines and to that end, we will have to select 8 wines that are to be included in our presentation.
One of the first things we did is to decide on which varietals that we were going to showcase. There are a lot of different varieties being grown here in Virginia and we wanted to make sure that we present the best of what Virginia has to offer. The list of varietals are: Albariño, Chardonnay, Viognier, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Tannat and Norton. Now that we know which varietals that we are going to present, it is time to begin figuring out which of the specific wines we wish to include in our presentation. To that end, we started with one of the simpler ones, Tannat.
The Tannat grape is originally from the Madiran AOC in France. This AOC is located in the Southwest of France near the border with Spain and the Pyrenees Mountains. The classic French Tannat wine of which Chateau Montus is the most prominent maker, is a very big, intense red wine with lots of fruit and incredible structure. It is also prevalent in the country of Uruguay where is is deemed their “national grape”. The wines from Uruguay tend to be lighter in body and tannins than those from France yet they retain the very rustic character that the Tannat grape is known for.
Here in Virginia the Tannat wines tend more towards the French style rather than the Uruguayan. I can say this with complete confidence after having gone through a tasting of six Virginia Tannats yesterday evening. The six wines sampled were the 2008 Winery at La Grange, the 2009 Fabbioli Cellars, the 2008 Chateau O’Brien, the 2008 Hillsborough Vineyards, the 2007 Chrysalis Vineyards, and the 2009 Hiddencroft Vineyards. You may notice that these wines are not all from the same vintage. It is important for us to be able to taste the vintages that will be available for us to present next summer.
The tasting was a blind tasting done by a panel of 5 individuals, 2 people from the wine industry (Miss Meaghan and myself) and 3 wine enthusiasts (Ms Cocktail, the Equestrian Queen and Mr Off Road). Each person was instructed to rate each wine not just on aromas and flavors but with an eye to how well crafted the wine was, including acid, alcohol and tannin levels. At the end, each taster was asked to submit a list of the wines ranked in the order they liked them from best to worst. These lists were compiled and an overall “winner” was selected with a second place finisher being noted as well.
The wine that took top honors from this panel was the 2008 Chateau O’Brien Tannat Limited Reserve. It appeared as the top wine on three of the five lists and finished in the top three on the other two. This was not much of a surprise as the Chateau O’Brien Tannat is typically considered as one of the best around even with a hefty $79 price tag. The second place finisher was a bit of a surprise though as it is the 2008 Hillsborough Onyx Tannat. It came in tops on two lists and finished strong on the remaining three. What was surprising and somewhat disappointing is that two of the wines , the 2009 Fabbioli Cellars Tannat and the 2009 Hiddencroft Tannat presented with Brett (short for brettanomyces which is a yeast that can produce off flavors in wine, that is a topic for another discussion though).
Tasting notes:
2008 Winery at La Grange Tannat - $26
This is a clear, deep ruby colored wine with legs. It has a medium(+) intense, developing nose displaying aromas of blackberry and tar. It is a dry wine with medium acidity, medium alcohol, medium(+) tannin, and medium body. It has medium (+) intense flavors of blackberry, blackcurrant and tar with a medium(+) length finish. It is a good, high priced wine that is ready to drink now but will improve with time in the bottle.
2009 Fabbioli Cellars Tannat - $45
This is a clear, deep ruby colored wine with legs. It has a medium(+) intense, developing nose displaying aromas of blackberry and barnyard. It is a dry wine with medium(+) acidity, medium(+) alcohol, medium tannin and medium body. It has medium(+) intense flavors of blackberry, plum and tar with a medium(+) length finish. It is a premium priced, acceptable wine that is ready to drink now but will improve with time in the bottle.
2008 Chateau O’Brien Tannat Limited Reserve - $79
This is a clear, deep ruby colored wine with legs. It has a medium(+) intense developing nose displaying aromas of blackberry and plums. It is a dry wine with medium(+) acidity, medium(+) alcohol, medium(+) tannin and medium body. It has medium(+) intense flavors of blackberry, plum and smoke with a long finish. It is a very good, premium priced wine that is ready to drink now but will improve in the bottle.
2008 Hillsborough Vineyards Onyx Tannat - $36
This is a clear, deep ruby colored wine with legs. It has a medium(+) intense, developing nose displaying aromas of blackberry and blueberry. It is a dry wine with medium(+) acidity, medium(+) alcohol,medium(+) tannin and medium body. It has medium(+) intense flavors of blackberry, blueberry and smoke with a long finish. It is a very good, premium priced wine that is ready to drink now but will improve in the bottle.
2007 Chrysalis Vineyards Tannat - $35
This is a clear, deep ruby colored wine with legs. It has a medium(+) intense, developing nose displaying aromas of blackberry and tar. It is a dry wine with medium acidity, medium(+) alcohol, medium tannin and medium body. It has medium intense flavors of blackberry, violets and tar with a medium(+) length finish. It is a good, premium priced wine that is ready to drink now but will improve in the the bottle.
2009 Hiddencroft Vineyards Tannat - $40
This is a clear, medium(+) intense, ruby colored wine with legs. It has medium intense, developing nose displaying aromas of plums and barnyard. It is a dry wine with medium acidity, medium alcohol, medium tannin, and medium body. It has medium intense flavors of blackberry, plum and tar with a medium(+) length finish. It is an acceptable, premium priced wine that is ready to drink now but will improve with time in the bottle.
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