Wine Expo '08 - Part I - The Show and Some Highlights

Where should I begin this post about our marathon tasting at the Wine Expo 2008? I don’t have time to comment on everything we tried at one go, so I’ll start with some thoughts about the show and a couple of the highlights.

Though I don’t have much experience with wines shows, I thought the expo itself was very well done. There occasionally a bit of a crush in getting to a particular kiosk, but even at the height of the madness there was never too much of a wait to get the sample we were looking for. The Coliseum is large enough that there was plenty of room to move around and when we had a wine we were particularly interested in, it was always possible to step back from the table and enjoy the wine in (relative) peace. And as Kelly said, speaking with some very knowledgeable agents and owners was a delight.

The only real improvement I can think of it that it would be nice to have spittoons either at the tables or, even better, distributed around the floor space. It is not possible to taste any significant number of wines without spitting, and while you could spit into the open plastic containers on each table, but there was a real risk of splashing bystanders or yourself, not to mention that looking at a bucket of spit is very unappealing. (Trafton Agencies had spittoons at their kiosk, but they were the only ones.) Kelly and I carried our own Nalgene containers for spitting - better than nothing, but a bit awkward.

Well, there is one other possible improvement. A few times I was almost knocked over by the scent of perfume, making it impossible to taste the wine. Presumably the people wearing perfume or cologne were more interested in a fun evening out than appreciating wine - there’s nothing wrong with that in itself, but even a light perfume can spoil the experience for others who are there for the wine. I’m not sure if there’s anything the organizers can do - perhaps a polite “no perfume” request at ticket purchase website?

I hope that doesn’t sound too negative - these were minor complaints. The show was well organized and a great place to meet and talk wine.

Now on to the wines themselves. While this was a great chance to taste many wines, it was sometimes hard to focus and we were suffering from severe palate fatigue by the end (well, actually by about a quarter of the way through), so what follows are not notes, but impressions, to be taken with a very large grain of salt. For the most part we avoided buying wines at the show, but instead made notes of wines to re-try later in a more leisurely setting.

My overall impression is that the wines at the show lean heavily toward a soft and approachable style, even in the higher price range. It’s the modern taste, I suppose – and I can’t pretend I don’t share that taste. While I’m a fan of the structured styles of Madiran and some of the Italian reds, I’m still struggling with Chianti and even Bordeaux. And more reserved and elegant wines are unlikely to show well at an event like this, between the crush of people, palate fatigue and competition of blowsier wines. Nonetheless, I hope this trend doesn’t mean that the likes of the Bocca di Lupo and the Bouscassé Vieilles Vignes are going to disappear from the shelves of ANBL.

To begin we went straight to the Pio Cesare table and sampled the ‘05 Fides. It is undoubtedly as good as the ‘03 and is great value even at $48. (While the '05 is the current vintage, I saw some bottles of the '03 on the shelves at the show. These are drinking beautifully right now.) We also had a great chat with Augusto Boffa (now if I could just remember what he said about the drinking window for the Ornato...) We also spole with Cinzia Travaglini who was signing bottles of her Gattinara. We didn't try the wine, as we've had it before and loved it, but I did buy a signed bottle.

One of the highlights of the evening for me were the four Pouilly-Fuissé wines (white burgundy / chardonnay grape) from Château Fuissé. Delicious enough that we bought a couple of bottles at around $50 each. Wine Spectator rated these at about 88 points - if these really are only 88 points for a Pouilly-Fuissé, 90+ is going to knock my socks off. As Kelly said when I told her the rating, “I dunno dude.”

Another big winner at a much lower price point were the wines of the Cave de Ribeauville, particularly the Prestige series ($19-$24). All were slightly sweet with balanced with good acidity and excellent fruit. We tried four different varietal Gewurztraminers at about the $24 mark, and the Ribeauville was our favourite. The Andante at $19 is a blend of Muscat and Gewurz - the nose leaps out with grapiness of Muscat with the lychee of Gewurz. Delicious and fun. And their varietal Pinot Gris might make me a convert to that grape. Usually I find Pinot Gris / Grigio to be crisp and clean but uninteresting - something to drink by the glass from a restaurant list if you want to play it safe. But the Ribeauville Pinot Gris had real character and interest. Kelly made me buy a couple of bottles. Their Grand Cru Gewurz was excellent, but every wine in the Prestige series was outstanding value.

And speaking of Gewurz, we had a quick taste of the Aresti Reserve Late Harvest Gewurz in the same price range ($11.50 / 375 ml) and it stood up extremely well. We didn’t spend as much time with it as we did the Ribeauville, but we’re keen to give this another try soon.

That's enough for now - I'll post more thoughts on the show over the next week or so. Kelly pointed out that we seemed to have gotten more out of the whites, perhaps because palate fatigue set in more quickly with the reds making it more difficult to appreciate the subtleties.

Those are my first impressions. What are yours? Please comment - there were far too many wines at the show to have tried them all, and I'm sure we must have missed a number of winners.