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on a mission!
AUTEUR! Yup- all three of our final scores had Auteur as the winner, but honestly once again, the REAL winner was us! Both of these Chardonnays are wonderful, either paired with food, or on their own. We won't stop there though, because we're
The Rules:
1.) Each bottle will be stored at the same temperature until serving time.
2.) Each bottle will be poured into identical decanters marked "A" & "B" (a third party will do this so that the judges do not know which is which).
3.) ROUND 1- A glass of each wine will be served immediately from the decanter and judged on its aroma, color, and taste. Each judge will mark which of the two they preferred in each category on their individual score sheets, without letting the other judge(s) know their choices.
4.) ROUND 2- After one hour of decanting, another glass of each wine will be poured for the judges and again judged again, but only on aroma and taste (ie. no color judging in this round), without letting the other judge(s) know their choices.
5.) ROUND 3- A food dish will then be served to pair with the wines, and the judges will secretly score which of the two wines they felt paired best.
6.) The judges will tally their individual score sheets and reveal their respective winner.
Click on image to enlarge sample score sheet. >>>
So once again we turned to our friend, John Fanaris. John is a level 1 sommelier and also the owner of Rustic Kitchen, where we have held the previous two BvB competitions. Rustic Kitchen just got their beer & wine license, so we asked John if he had anything that would be a good contender for the Adelaida? Sure enough, he did not let us down- it just so happened that one of the Chardonnays that he was serving was perfect! John chose a 2014 Auteur Chardonnay, which at $35, was close in price range, and relatively similar with regard to the oak barrels used. It was time to get this battle started, and since both chard brands began with the letter "A," we appropriately decided to call it, "The Battle of the ChardonnAys!"
Did we mention that we LOVE the food at Rustic Kitchen?!
CHALLENGE #3 : JUNE 29th, 2016
2014 ADELAIDA CHARDONNAY- HMR ESTATE vs. 2014 AUTEUR CHARDONNAY- SONOMA COAST.
The Premise:
Remember the Pepsi Challenge?! We'll we thought we'd do the same thing, only with wine!
We thought that it would be fun to take two wines that we really love, and put them up against each other in a blind tasting. To be fair, the wines must be of the same varietal; in the same price range; served at the same temperature; and in the same type of glass. Our "competitors" will usually be from different wineries, but occasionally they might be the exact same wine, just different vintages. They could even be the same brand and vintage, but from different vineyards. Make sure to follow us on either Instagram, Facebook, and/or Twitter to stay posted on when our next match up will be!
LET THE BOTTLES BEGIN!
$35.00
Well it's summertime and you know what that means- the whites and the rosés are in heavy rotation! Because of that, we figured it made perfect sense to kick off our summer edition of Bottle vs. Bottle with a nice, chilled Chardonnay. There were a few different ones that we were considering, but having recently fallen in love with Adelaida's 2014 HMR Estate chard, this was the perfect excuse to pick up another bottle! Truth be told, another one of our new favorite chards is Melville's 2015 Clone 76 Inox, but putting that head-to-head against the aforementioned Adelaida presented two problems: 1.) it was a different vintage, which goes against our eligibility rules, and 2.) it is a chard that is made using stainless steel barrels, so it just wouldn't have been an appropriate match against the Adelaida, which is fermented in oak barrels.
We had determined beforehand that the winner of this edition
BOTTLE vs. BOTTLE
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Now we mentioned in our previous BvB, that we were starting to notice some consistency... and that consistency was the inconsistency! Well believe it or not, BvB 3 was no different! Once again all three of us judges did some "flip-flopping." Nicole went with "Wine B" as her pick in rounds 1 & 2, but switched to "Wine A" for the 3rd (pairing) round. Michael picked "Wine A" in round 1, but flipped to "Wine B" for rounds 2 & 3. And John, who picked "B" in the 1st round, flipped to "A" in round 2, and then switched back to "B" in the last round, so as you can see, everyone was all over the place!
$40.00
Round one- Aroma (1 point), Color (1 point), Taste (2 points).
Round two- Aroma (1 point), Taste (3 points)
The battlefield!
would go on to Bottle vs Bottle 4 and take on another Chardonnay that we love- Cakebread! So stay tuned and in a few weeks we'll see if Auteur will take the Cake?!
there somewhere!
(10 points would be a perfect score)
Before we announce the winner, what needs to be said here is that all three of us literally could have gone either way at any point- both wines were so good and we were all on the fence, every single round as to which one to pick? Oh, and just a reminder that all BvB's are 100% blind tastings; we don't have any clue whatsoever which wine we are drinking until the scores are all tallied, and we open the accompanying closed tags on the decanters. So which wine won, you ask? Well when the smoke cleared and all the points were tallied, all three judges were in-sync with the winner, and that winner is.....
Wine Problems would like to thank John & Noelle Fanaris, and the great staff at Rustic Kitchen,
which is located at: 3523 S. Centinela Ave. Los Angeles, 90066. Phone: (310) 390-1500.
Go check out this new market, café, and wine bar- the food is fantastic and it has a great vibe!
TIME FOR ROUND 3 !!!
2014 ADELAIDA CHARDONNAY vs. 2014 AUTEUR CHARDONNAY
In case you were wondering what our food pairings were, we all shared several items between the three of us, including: a Grilled Peach and Burrata Salad; Turkey Panini; Avocado Fries; Crispy Cauliflower; and Fish & Chips (sans chips). Oh, and there might have been some cheesecake in