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Duckhorn Extravaganza In July of 2000, we hosted a wine tasting party for ten of our friends featuring a vertical tasting of various Duckhorn Merlot bottles from the late 1980s. The bottles were opened roughly thirty minutes before tasting; they were not decanted. To add some mystery to the occasion, the wines were tasted blind. As we summarized our thoughts, it was clear that the wines were similar -- which should be no surprise because, after all, they were all over ten years old and all made by the same winemaker. As noted in the quick summary below, there was not overwhelming favorite among the bottles we opened but there was a collective tilt towards the 1986 Three Palms.
In order to truly put our tasting acumen to the test, we handed out tasting notes from the most recent vertical wine tastings held at Duckhorn winery. Everyone compared their own notes with the 'official' wine tasting notes and then tried to guess which 'blind' bottle was the one in the notes. One member of our group correctly guessed three of the bottles, several others guessed two correctly, and everyone else (except one poor soul) guessed one bottle right. This was particularly challenging because the wines were so similar. Following the actual tasting of the Duckhorn merlots, we continued to drink from the various bottles through dinner. The menu:
Generally, we noticed some improvement in the wines as we moved through dinner although the comments and favorites didn't change substantially. We also opened second bottles of each and, for what it's worth, we noticed some differences between the bottles. Cheers!
For more information on how to enjoy wine tastings, check out these books:
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