Judgment of LaFollette

When I was on vacation with several of my old high school friends a couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to conduct my first ever blind tasting of Dry Run wines interspersed with wines from commercial wineries.  The results were telling.  I randomly provided each of the 12 participating adults with blind tastes of the following seven wines:

2008 Dry Run Pinot Noir                                                                              

2009 Dry Run Pinot Noir                                                                              

2009 Francis Copolla Chadonnay

2009 Angeline Pinot Noir                                                                              

2010 Dry Run Chardonnay                                                                           

2010 Dry Run Pinot Noir                                                                              

2010 Dry Run Malbec                                                                                   

I then asked each of the participants to rank the wines in order of preference, first through seventh.  The bottle with the lowest average ranking (i.e. the most preferred) was the Angeline Pinot Noir, with the Francis Copolla Chardonnay coming in second.  These are two wines you can find for $15 or less at most any local wine store.  Most of my wines averaged about the same score in the middle of the pack, with the 2008 Pinot Noir, which I’ve been bad mouthing for years, taking its deserved place in last. 

Interestingly, this year’s Malbec (which I’m disappointed with) actually scored better than this year’s Chardonnay (which I’m pretty pleased with).  While some of that can be credited to the fact that I had only one full bodied wine to offer several anti-white, cabernet drinkers, it does suggest that I might delay the writing of that acceptance speech I had planned for the Chardonnay I’m entering in next month’s amateur winemaking competition. 

More than one person told me afterwards that in hindsight they felt badly having chosen the commercial wines over my own, but I honestly wasn’t disappointed by the results.  For one thing, my grapes all had to travel thousands of miles to get to my house, which is never going to produce ideal results.  For another thing, this is my dry run after all.  If I already thought I was a great winemaker, then I would be trying to make wine for a living.  It’s like I told one of my friends.  Would you apologize to me if you told me you liked the shirt you bought for $15 at Old Navy better than the one I made you myself from home.  No.  Because I don’t know how to make shirts.  But if I practiced hard enough, someday I might.  And in the meantime, you’d better wear that sucker with pride.