This past Friday evening we had our every other monthly meeting of the Pacific Point Wine Tasting Club (“PPWTC”).  The club was started back in January when my wife and I had the idea to start a wine-tasting club in our community.

It’s been easier to get the wine tasting club up and running than I anticipated.  The most challenging decision so far has been whether to have the host buy the wines, then get reimbursed, or for everyone to bring a bottle.  We decided on the later

In a nutshell, the “mission” if you will, of the PPWTC is to learn a bit about the wine while having fun and fellowship with friends and/or neighbors.  Each individual/couple brings a bottle of the designated wine varietal costing between $15-$25).  The varietal for the meeting this past Friday was Zinfandel (prior meetings were e Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Chardonnay).  The host is charged with serving some appetizers that pair with the varietal.  I usually bring some background information about the grape varietal to hand out.  I think that’s important because if you know what aromas and flavors are typical of a particular grape varietal it helps you identify aromas and flavors of the wine.  More details about that in another post.

There we 12 of us, who tasted 7 different zinfandels.  We do a blind tasting(i.e. the wine label is covered so as not to tip-off the taster) We taste the wines, the score them on a simple 5 point scale (5=best; 1 worse) for 5 attributes – Appearance, Aromas, Body, Taste, and Finish.  Sometimes we talk about the wine, sometimes we don’t.  We always have something to eat while trying the wines though.  While that would be considered a no-no at a more formal tasting, it’s a wine tasting club, and we’re there to have fun!  After we finish scoring the wines, we finish the bottles, and if available have a bonus bottle or two;-)  I must say,  it seems to be more fun after the scoring, when the wine, and conversation are flowing!

This months winners (we had a tie) were a 2006 Rosenblum Annette’s Reserve, and a 2007 Lake Sonoma Zinfandel (though from a value perspective I consider the Lake Sonoma to be the winner because the retail price is less).  The average score for both was 88pts ( I converted the aforementioned 25 point scale to a 100 point scale as follows – Took the average score from the 12 tasters of 18.33, multiplied it by 2 to get 37.66, the added 50 to get 87.66 or 88 rounded up – you might not want to try this at home kids, I’m a CPA;-)  Kidding aside, you just need to find a consistent scale to score the wines.

We had a  blast, and there’s been some talk of having the meetings monthly instead of every other month!  I don’t know if that will happen, but it tells me the PPWTC is moving in the right direction as we learn about wine, build friendships, and have fun doing it!

-M