The Judgment of Riverhead: The Wines. The Winners.

The judges tasting and scoring reds from Long Island, France and California

By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor

I walked in to Saturday night's "Judgment of Riverhead" tasting at Roanoke Vineyards with an intoxicating blend of excitement, curiosity and nervousness.

The wine lover in me was near-giddy about tasting so many top wines blind. Blind tasting is one of my favorite things to do -- especially when I get to taste with winemakers and other industry folks. I wish I got to do it more often.

The local wine enthusiast in me wondered what Long Island wines would be poured and just how they'd stack up against the unknown-but-highly rated wines from France and California. Would top wineries send their top guns? A look around the room offered clues -- several winery owners and winemaker were there. Was that a coincidence or were there wines in the lineup?

I also went into this tasting with a lot of questions. And I walked out few new or concrete answers -- and even more questions.

In a future post, I'll pose and discuss some of these questions and offer some insights from some of my fellow judges as well. It was a fascinating evening and one that is deserving of thoughtful analysis.

Today though, I want to focus on the wines -- local and not -- themselves and discuss the results of the scoring.

As I mentioned in my preview post, we tasted 18 wines total -- 9 white and 9 red -- with three each from Long Island, France and California.

The whites were all chardonnay and were (organized by region, not scoring):

• 2008 Marsanny Blanc "Champs Perdrix" Marc Roy
• 2008 Meurault "L'ormeau" Boyer-Martenot
• 2008 Puligny Montrachet "Le Trezin" Colin-Morey
• 2007 Martinelli "Martinelli Road" Chardonnay (By Helen Turley)
• 2008 Paul Hobbs Russian River Chardonnay
• 2008 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay
• 2007 Pellegrini Vineyards "Vintner's Pride" Chardonnay
• 2007 Wolffer Estate "Perle" Chardonnay
• 2008 Palmer Vineyards Chardonnay Reserve

The winner by overall scoring was the Pellegrini 2007 "Vintner's Pride" Chardonnay.

My highest-scored whites was the Puligny Montrachet, but as you can see (the numbers in the left column are the overall scores) the Long Island wines fared well overall. I scored the Palmer highly.

Interestingly, my lowest score went to the winning wine, which I also thought was from California.

After all of that that barrel-influenced chardonnay, I was ready to move on to the nine reds -- and they did not disappoint:

• 2004 Leoville Poyferre
• 2004 Gruaud Larose
• 2004 Cos D'Estournel
• 2007 Ramey "Annum" Cabernet Sauvignon
• 2007 Detert Family Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
• 2007 Paul Hobbs "Crossbarn" Cabernet Sauvignon
• 2004 Grapes of Roth Merlot
• 2007 Macari Vineyards "Bergen Road"
• 2007 Roanoke Vineyards 2007 "Blend One"

There was an tie for the top spot after the judges' scores were tallied -- the Roanoke and the Detert Family, two wines that truly couldn't be more divergent in style.

My highest score went to the Leoville Poyferre, with the Roanoke and Detert following just behind. I liked the Detert enough that I'm actually going to track some down and drink it again.

Today, I say congratulations to all of the Long Island wineries who took part, especially the winners, and also want to congratulate the fine folks at Roanoke Vineyards for putting on a well-conceived and well-organized tasting.

If you were there -- and I know several of our readers were -- what were your impressions? Did you agree with the judges? What were your favorite wines?

 

 

Comments

[Adam Ehmer]

Hey Lenn-

Thanks for the post and especially for your attendance at the event. As the chief-of-staff in pouring logistics and post-judgement score analysis (self-titled), I have some insights on how the guests judged the wines compared to the panelists. I've also recruited a team of PhD statisticians to help me with this analysis. I can say now that overall the scores we're similar between the panelists and the guests. I'll be posting some of this analysis on our Facebook page throughout the day... http://www.facebook.com/RoanokeVineyards

[Lenn Thompson]

Adam: It was my pleasure. And I will watching the FB page with keen interest. Really curious to see what the guests thought of the wines.

You guys did a great job. You're putting together many of the most interesting events on the North Fork.

[Richard Zaremba]

Hello Lenn,

I had a great experience at Detert in October during their harvest event. Tom, John and Bill hosted anyone who had purchased wine to their house in Oakville (behind ToKalon) and poured 2004-2007 Cabernet and Cabernet Franc.
I would highly recommend the 2007 Cabernet Franc.

[Jay Schneider]

I thoroughly enjoyed the tasting, and found myself suprised at some of my choices. I think we agreed with the judges more than disagreed. As much as I love LI, my top score did go to the Puligny as well, but I did score the Roanoke # 1. Overall, a great event!

[steveg]

How did you choose the wines from outside LI? I'd be curious to know the retail price of each bottle. Were the prices similar?

I really wanted to go to this. Very upset I couldn't.

[Adam Ehmer]

Steve- Wines outside Long Island were selected by Scott Sandell & Mark Grimaldi based on a number of criteria. We wanted wines comparable to those in the original 1976 tasting, but they needed to be current releases/currently available. We also wanted to include wines of high quality that are accessible to most wine consumers.

Of the original producers, we only included the Chateau Montelena Chardonnay, which famously won the 1976 event, and is still a great wine at a reasonable price. The Burgundy's included the Colin Morey Puligny Montrachet "Le Trezin" ($50) that was featured by Jay McInerney in the WSJ this fall and Boyer-Martenot Meursault ($45) and the Marsannay ($27) are both fairly small production farmers, in some respects not too different from our local farmers & winemakers. The California Russian River Valley Chardonnay wines were made by Helen Turley- Martinelli ($56) and Paul Hobbs ($45), whose Pinot Noir just ended up on the Wine Spectator's top 10 list for the year. The Long Island whites, which ranged from $19-35 scored higher as a group than their more expensive counterparts, based on scores from both panelists and our crowd of about 80 guests.

For the reds, we selected 2nd-growth Bordeaux ranging in price from $50-125, based on critical reviews from Wine Spectator/Wine Advocate and availability. The Napa Cabernets ranged in price from $40 - $75, and included the Ramey Annum Cabernet Sauvignon ($75) which just came in at #30 on Wine Spectator's top 100 wines of 2010. As a group, the Long Island reds priced between $40-50 were neck and neck with the Bordeaux and Napa Cabs, as scored by both panelists and guests. Of course these kinds of tastings are never definitive, and you can argue about caveats, but we are pleased with the results and we continue to stand by the quality and value of wines from our region on the world stage.