For the Love of Pinot Noir…
Yikes! The 8th Annual Pinot Noir Summit is 6 weeks from today.
So much to do, my mind and body are running 24/7. All of this because…I LOVE PINOT!
Over the last several months, an outstanding group of Pinot Noir loving wine professionals tasted over 248 Pinot Noirs that had been submitted to the 8th Annual Pinot Noir Shootout. Each wine was tasted by at least two panels of wine experts. I joined each panel of judges, meaning in reality, that I tasted each of the wines twice. Holy Pinot, Batman! That means I tasted 496 Pinots between late October and early January.
On Monday, it was time to taste the top 64 wines and determine which wines will move forward to the blind tasting at Pinot Noir Summit when the attendees get to pit their palates against our panel (say that three times quickly).
Boudin Bakery at Fisherman’s Wharf generously and graciously hosted our finals. The room is perfectly suited to taste wines, bright and airy but we were scrunched for space because we had so many great judges who wanted to join us at the finals.
We had 32 panelists, 64 wines, 2048 comments, and 256 Pinot Noir glasses. We were scrunched for space.
I am in the process of tabulating scores, iedntifying the top contenders, notifying the wineries and washing lots and lots of glasses by hand.Then it’s on to the Pinot Noir Summit. Plan on joining us on February 27th in San Rafael, California ~ just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Click on the banner on the upper left side of this blog or register here if you’d like to attend the Summit. Only 200 tickets will be sold.
