It doesn’t seem right to be drinking Sauvignon Blanc on Cinco de Mayo but that is what we did. We had a very small group for our Thursday night tasting at Fine Wines of Stockton this week. Maybe everyone else was out drinking Margaritas. George and Gail were out of town so Alan put on the tasting. Since there were so few of us we only opened three wines. Actually there was a fourth wine, which was the first. There was half a bottle of 2010 Santa Ema Sauvignon Blanc from Chile that someone else had opened earlier, so we added it to our tasting menu for the night. After that we tasted two Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc and a French White Bordeaux. Technically the Latour Martillac is 47% Sauvignon Blanc, 50% Semillon and 3% Muscadelle but we still counted it as a Sauvignon Blanc.
2010 Santa Ema Sauvignon Blanc – We taste this every vintage and it is interesting to see how the vintage changes the wine. Our previous notes for the 2009 indicate it was a little grassy while the 2010 is more citrus flavored. The color is a very light yellow and there is a floral and citrus nose, orange blossoms maybe. There is a lot of acid for a nice crisp citrus flavor. The finish is medium length and very nice for a $9.00 wine. If I were to use the Witless Whiner’s rating system this would be 5 corks.
2009 Decoy Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc – Another wine with a light yellow color. We have tasted this before in a food and wine pairing in September 2010 and we pretty much found it tasted the same. A floral tropical nose with citrus and a slight grassiness in the flavor. Good acid and a medium length finish.
2009 Duckhorn Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc – Again the color was a light yellow. The nose was somewhat closed. There was a rounder mouthfeel, probably due to the new oak it was aged in. The flavor was citrus, bitter orange, a little less flavor overall than the Decoy.
2007 Chateau LaTour Martillac – We have tasted the 2006 vintage back in April 2011 and this 2007 vintage back in March 2011. It may be interesting to look back at those posts and see the differences and similarities to our tasting today. The LaTour Martillac has a dark yellow color unlike all of the previous wines. The nose was complex with anise, allspice and cinnamon. Plenty of acid with complex flavors and a round mouthfeel with a medium length finish. Interestingly, the longer it was in the glass the more it showed Sauvignon Blanc characteristics of hay like grassiness.
Pete & Nancy- It was good to see you again at Fine Wines the other night. I thought we tasted the Duckhorn Sauvignon Blanc on the Napa bus trip last Nov 2010. I wish we had tried an Australian SB. My recommendation is Starborough SB. Retails under $14. Really grassy/crisp/citrus. I hope to make it by again soon for another Thursday night tasting. I found your website/ blog. Very neat. Yes, wine does make life more fun.- Joyce Weber
I thought we had too but our notes show a Duckhorn Chardonnay. I’ll have to go back to our written notes and see if we left out a wine. We did have a Sauvignon Blanc with lunch at Turnbull.