***BWE DC Blind Tasting: '95 vs '96 Medocs

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 4:35 pm

The plan is for a '95 vs '96 Northern Medoc blind tasting at BWE '12. Usually 3 wines in each group works well logistically.

UPDATED Jan 12, 2012:

With 40 people scheduled to attend, it looks like moving from 2 bottles (1.2 oz pours, no room for a bad bottle) to 3 bottles (1.8 oz pours, 1.2 oz in case of a bad bottle) would be advisable. So here is the planned lineup:

Cos D'Estournel - St. Estephe
1995
Bublitz - 1
Northway - 1
Hudson - 1

1996
Stefan - 2
Northway - 1

Ducru Beaucaillou - St. Julien
1995
Bublitz - 2
MichaelP - 1

1996
How - 2
Glasser - 1

Grand Puy Lacoste - Pauillac
1995
Wheltle- 2
Michael P - 1

1996
Glasser - 2
Nic - 1

Let me know if I have you listed for something you didn't say you could bring.

Or for those who prefer to see this listed by person rather than by wine:

Bublitz
95 Cos - 1
95 Ducru - 2

Northway
95 Cos - 1
96 Cos - 1

Hudson
95 Cos - 1

Stefan
96 Cos - 2

MichaelP
95 Ducru - 1
95 GPL - 1

Glasser
96 Ducru - 1
96 GPL - 2

How
96 Ducru - 2

Wheltle
95 GPL - 2

Nic
96 GPL - 1

Tom In DC · Post by **Tom In DC** » Thu Dec 15, 2011 4:41 pm

All of our 96's went off to market in the spring.

We can bring two bottles of either '95 Lafon-Rochet or '95 Grand-Puy-Lacoste.

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Thu Dec 15, 2011 5:50 pm

1996 Calon Segur
1996 Ducru Beaucaillou
1996 Cos d'Estournel

Jay Winton · Post by **Jay Winton** » Thu Dec 15, 2011 7:45 pm

I can add a 96 Lafon Rochet.

Winona Chief · Post by **Winona Chief** » Fri Dec 16, 2011 2:52 am

JimHow wrote:1996 Calon Segur
1996 Ducru Beaucaillou
1996 Cos d'Estournel

I have the 1995 of each of these wines. Be happy to bring some.

Chris Bublitz

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Fri Dec 16, 2011 3:17 am

Sounds good, Chris, plus I'm going to put you down for two on the attendee list.
That gets us to 30.
Ten places left!

Jay Winton · Post by **Jay Winton** » Fri Dec 16, 2011 5:32 pm

our guest Jack will add a 96 LLC. I need to see what else I have for these 2 years as my CT list is not complete.

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Sat Dec 17, 2011 3:38 pm

Putting this all on a spreadsheet to see how we match up. For 30-35 people, 2 bottles will suffice for a 1.25-1.5 oz pour. Above that, we'll need a third bottle. I have pour restrictors.

I recommend we do 3 wines from each year - preferably matched. From what we have so far, I will suggest:

Grand Puy Lacoste - we are set for this wine
1995 - Tom in DC (2 bottles)
1996 - DavidG (2 bottles)

Ducru Beaucaillou - if Chris and Jim bring 2 bottles each, we are set for this wine
1995 - Chris
1996 - Jim

Not bad at all... But we need a third wine. Several of the wines mentioned in this thread would be excellent candidates, but we need a few more people to make suggestions so we can get 2 bottles of both the '95 and '96.

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Sat Dec 17, 2011 3:47 pm

One more issue regarding the blind tasting: glassware.

The restaurant can supply 2 stems per person. We will be tasting 6 wines. Most people traveling won't be bringing their own glassware. Small pours, just a tasting, but still some prefer to keep all the wines in front of them to go back and forth. Is it worth a few extra bucks for me to rent additional stems? How many people want 6 glasses? Be aware that if everyone wants 6 glasses space will start to get tight. Shouldn't be a problem for the tasting, but once the food is served table top space will get scarce.

stefan · Post by **stefan** » Sat Dec 17, 2011 6:55 pm

I have a '96 Cos but not a '95.

I have '95 Calon Segur but not '96.

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 1:17 pm

Guys: I need a show of hands on who wants how many stems. CP can rent some but they will be crummy tiny stems. I can buy bigger ones for $4/stem, not thin elegant crystal but good sized good-shaped 20-oz. red wine stems.

I plan on doing 3 flights of 2 wines each: '95 vs '96 of the same wine in each flight. We will have about 15 minutes to spend with each flight. If you want to save your pours you will need more than 2 stems.

Do you want two stems for the blind tasting? Four? Six?

marcs · Post by **marcs** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 6:26 pm

I can contribute 2 bottles of 1996 Leoville Poyferre.

marcs · Post by **marcs** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 7:18 pm

Is the blind tasting the same thing as the dinner, or are they done separate nights? Sorry, have not attended a BWE-fest before.

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 7:28 pm

I think two bottles of 1996 Leoville Poyferre would be a fine addition, Marc, thanks!
What do you think, David?
Yes, the tasting is done on the night of the Saturday night dinner.
It is usually held between the champagne reception and the dinner.

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 2:10 am

Agree, a couple bottles of '96 Poyferre would be most welcome indeed! Ideally we can get a couple bottles of '95 to match it for the blind tasting. And even if we can't, it would still be a welcome addition for the dinner.

So this is how the evening usually progresses:

We start with a Champagne reception and butlered hors d'oeuvres for the first hour. Gives everyone time to get there.

Then we have an hour for the blind tasting. I plan on three flights of two wines each: '95 vs '96, with about 15 minutes between pours. Thus the question about glassware in case people want to save/compare all the wines at once.

Then we have the 3-course dinner with multiple wines contributed by attendees. So if a wine you want to bring doesn't "fit" into the blind tasting, no problem! We'll drink it non-blind (or blind if you want) during the dinner. This part of the dinner is pretty free-form. Some people just put their bottles out for anyone to sample. Others like to bring them around to pour themselves. It's a nice room with plenty of room for mingling.

Winona Chief · Post by **Winona Chief** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 8:35 pm

With respect to wine glasse, I think that two stems per person is not going to be enough. We will probably need at least four per person. I am local so I can bring all that Marjorie and me will need plus a few extra. The 20 to 24 ounce wine glasses take up an awful lot of table space and seem to encourage too big pours from some. Any chance we can rent some mid-level 12 to 14 ounce stems. Didn't we have a bunch of extra red wine Riedel Ouvertures last time? I thought they worked out fine.

Chris Bublitz

marcs · Post by **marcs** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 9:30 pm

It's a nice room with plenty of room for mingling.

Sorry to raise the Charlie Palmer thing again, but the wine dinner I did there was in a long narrow room with a single long narrow table and no room whatsoever for mingling. That was one reason I raised the possibility of another location. You guys got a different room from the one I was in I presume?

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 9:36 pm

Yes, we are hosted in a large room that fits about 50 people.
We usually cap these events at 40.

Winona Chief · Post by **Winona Chief** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 10:33 pm

Yes, the room we had for the Saturday night main event dinner at Charlie Palmer was very large with plenty of room for mingling. I agree with Jim - it could probably accomodate 50 people. I'm assuming we will be getting that space again.

Chris Bublitz

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 11:21 pm

Chris good point I will look for some 12 oz stems. CP did come up with 3 stems/person last time but it was a stretch & they only did it because the rental glasses were crappy 6-ozers after I had given specific instructions for larger stems. I'm not sure we'll get more than 2 each and while I trust CP I am not so sanguine about the glass rental companies' ability to deliver decent stems. So I am considering purchasing 60 or so cheapies on Overstock.com.

Marc the room at CP we will reserve is the Alcove. Very nicely proportioned room - roundish/squarish not long/skinny at all with space for up to 8 8-tops plus a counter for shared bottles. We usually have 5 round tables which is much more conducive to conversation than one big table and it leaves lots of room to wander from table to table.

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 3:24 am

We've got 2 bottles each of the '95 and '96 of the following:

Ducru Beaucaillou
'95 Chris B
'96 Jim How

Grand Puy Lacoste
'95 Tom in DC
'96 DavidG

Candidates for the 3rd wine in the blind tasting are as follows. I've put in ?? since Chris and Jim have already volunteered Ducru:

Calon Segur
'95 Stefan?
'96 Jim??

Cos D'Estournel
'95 Chris??
'96 Stefan?

Leoville Poyferre
'95 ??
'96 MarcS

We've got plenty of time to figure this out. If we get enough contributions, we might do more than 3 pairs of wines. But I don't want the blind tasting to get so big that it takes up the entire evening.

JCNorthway · Post by **JCNorthway** » Thu Dec 22, 2011 6:41 am

I could do a 95 and/or 96 Cos if we go that direction.

Jon

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Tue Dec 27, 2011 6:02 pm

Stefan and Jon: Can you rustle 2 bottles of '95 Cos and 2 bottles of '96 Cos between the two of you? If so, that would give us a St Estephe to go with our St Julien and Pauillac. Not that this will enable us to legitimately generalize from 3 wines to the entire vintage, but you know we'll do it anyway and it gives a bit more diversity by spreading it out between the communes.

If we can get 2 bottles of '95 Leoville Poyferre to match Marc's '96, we could add a 4th wine. I don't think I'd go beyond that as the logistics start to get a little complicated for our time frame, and we don't want people schnockered before dinner is served.

The list is up to 34 people, which adds up to about 1.25-1.5 oz per person with two bottles. Should be enough for a decent taste, but not much more. The bottles with dinner are for drinking.

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Tue Dec 27, 2011 6:03 pm

And if a bottle is corked or otherwise flawed, we'll have to get reaaallly stingy with the pours. Unless we have a backup bottle in reserve.

stefan · Post by **stefan** » Tue Dec 27, 2011 6:47 pm

David, I do not have '95 Cos. My inventory list says that I have a second '96 Cos, but I know we drank one in the last couple of years and I might have failed to mark it off. I will do a physical inventory when I get home on Saturday.

JCNorthway · Post by **JCNorthway** » Thu Dec 29, 2011 12:00 am

David (and Stefan), I can do either/both 95/96 of Cos, but only 1 bottle from each vintage. If we cannot fill out Cos for the tasting, perhaps we could go another direction. I have Pontet Canet in both vintages if that might be an interesting comparison, and if others can help fill it out.

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Thu Dec 29, 2011 12:33 am

Pontet Canet and Leoville Poyferre are certainly possibilities, but I'm not giving up on Cos yet...

If Stefan finds that he does have a bottle of '96, and Jon can bring one '95 and one '96, then all we need is one more bottle of the '95. If no one has it in their cellar, we can purchase a bottle for the tasting. Plenty of places have it for $150-200.

Again we've got plenty of time, so let's see if anyone else chimes in.

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Thu Dec 29, 2011 12:40 am

I'm in for two bottles of 1996 Ducru.
A Cos face-off would be nice but I'm not going to cry if we do 95 v. 96 Pontet.

Michael-P · Post by **Michael-P** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 3:25 pm

I can bring a 95 Ducru and 95 GPL.

Plus some other more interesting (potentially but not necessarily better) wines.

Michael-P

stefan · Post by **stefan** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 6:25 pm

I do have two bottles of '96 Cos but none of '95.

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 4:51 am

Based on what I think I've seen everyone post as available, we should have 2 bottles each of the '95 and '96 Cos, Ducru and GPL, with no one having to bring more than 2 bottles. With attendance approaching 40, this means 1 oz pours. If bottles of another wine become available in both '95 and '96 versions I'd be happy to expand the tasting to a fourth wine since pours are so small. Even better would be another bottle of '95 Cos and '95 Ducru, giving us 3 bottles of each wine and allowing 1.5 oz pours.

So this is the lineup so far, I think. Tell me if I've put you down for something you don't have or if you've got a better suggestion for who brings what. Don't feel bad if you offered something and your name isn't on the list. This was nothing other than logistics to get at least 2 bottles each of the '95 and '96 vintages of at least three wines. Bring what you suggested even if it isn't on the blind tasting list and we'll be more than happy to drink it with dinner!

Cos D'Estournel - St. Estephe
1995
Bublitz - 1 (possibly a second?)
Northway - 1

1996
Stefan - 2
Northway - 1 (backup or third bottle?)

Ducru Beaucaillou - St. Julien
1995
Bublitz - 1 (possibly a second?)
MichaelP - 1

1996
How - 2
Glasser - 1 (backup or third bottle?)

Grand Puy Lacoste - Pauillac
1995
Wheltle- 2
Michael P - 1 (backup or third bottle?)

1996
Glasser - 2
Nic - 1 (backup or third bottle?)

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 6:13 pm

With 40 people scheduled to attend, it looks like moving from 2 bottles (1.2 oz pours, no room for a bad bottle) to 3 bottles (1.8 oz pours, 1.2 oz in case of a bad bottle) would be advisable. Here's our lineup (edited to reflect Chris' latest contribution):

Cos D'Estournel - St. Estephe
1995
Bublitz - 1
Northway - 1
Hudson - 1

1996
Stefan - 2
Northway - 1

Ducru Beaucaillou - St. Julien
1995
Bublitz - 2
MichaelP - 1

1996
How - 2
Glasser - 1

Grand Puy Lacoste - Pauillac
1995
Wheltle- 2
Michael P - 1

1996
Glasser - 2
Nic - 1

Let me know if I have you listed for something you didn't say you could bring.

Or for those who prefer to see this listed by person rather than by wine:

Bublitz
95 Cos - 1
95 Ducru - 2

Northway
95 Cos - 1
96 Cos - 1

Hudson
95 Cos - 1

Stefan
96 Cos - 2

MichaelP
95 Ducru - 1
95 GPL - 1

Glasser
96 Ducru - 1
96 GPL - 2

How
96 Ducru - 2

Wheltle
95 GPL - 2

Nic
96 GPL - 1

Winona Chief · Post by **Winona Chief** » Thu Jan 12, 2012 11:31 pm

I agree that we will need three bottles of each wine for the blind tasting. I will contribute another bottle of 1995 Ducru.

Chris Bublitz

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 12:03 am

You have the gratitude and appreciation of your dictator, Chris, and all contributors. Should be an awesome tasting!

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 12:05 am

Outstanding, Chris, well done! We are in great shape.

Now I will give you all a heads up that I intend to be anal about having all of the bottles delivered to my hotel room by 10 AM Saturday. I want them by 10 AM so Peggy and I can enjoy some sightseeing and lunch on Saturday. My plan is to decant the wines to remove them from their sediment all at about the same time just before leaving for the event. After decanting I will immediately rinse the bottles and place the wines back in them, recork them, cover them with foil, and label them. This means they'll all be decanted about 2-3 hours before the tasting. This is necessary so that we can use the pour restrictors without stirring up sediment. We can't control the different provenance of the bottles prior to the event, but we can control the opening and oxygenation so they are all the same.

At past events, we've poured two wines at a time, but this time we should have 6 glasses per person (it'll be a glass jungle on the tables!). SO - we can pour all 6 wines at once. If I can have 2 volunteers to help me pour, three of us pouring two wines each will get the wine into the glasses pretty quickly.

How many clues do you want about which wine is which?

Should I completely randomize them with no clues (ie wines 1-6)?

Should I pair the '95 and '96 of each wine but keep blind which wine is which and which vintage is which (ie 1A and 1B are two different vintages of the same wine, 2A and 2B are two different vintages of another wine, 3A and 3B are two different vintages of the third wine)?

Or some other arrangement?

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 12:29 am

Indeed, David. Now that Lynch Bages has attained the rarefied orbit of "The Next Lafite," and will therefore not be available for the blind tasting, we will want to ensure that the Howaniec-Glasser entry of 1996 Ducru "The St. Julien Lynch Bages" Beaucaillou is served on equal footing with the other participants. It is only fair to the other entrants.

DavidG · Post by **DavidG** » Thu Mar 08, 2012 12:15 am

Bump - just a reminder of the wines for the blind tasting and who's bringing them.

JimHow · Post by **JimHow** » Thu Mar 08, 2012 12:56 am

Should be great, can't wait!
My two bottles of '96 Ducru are at the ready!

Tom In DC · Post by **Tom In DC** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 3:41 am

Bumping this to remind myself of what I'm supposed to bring...

Michael-P · Post by **Michael-P** » Fri Mar 23, 2012 5:29 am

DavidG already has my 2 bottles.

Michael-P