La Canada or Bust Part 2

Remember the ABC Wide World of Sports Theme?

"The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat"

Then they show that poor skier going down the long jump crashing and burning at the end. Yeah! It was kinda like that. My wine crashed and burned.

The best part of it though was once again getting together with a great group of Wine Lovers that love tasting wines blind so that we can chop them down one by one until there is but one standing. Good job Jon! You won fair and square. 2006 Kaesler Cabernet from Barossa Valley was a great choice for a wine that we had the chance to taste twice. Can someone say unfair handicap. Just Kidding! Hey at least my palate didn't let me down there. Numbers 8 and 9 were the same wine and I was right. Of course that was after I re-tasted them. And yes! I agree that my choice, Felino 2007 Cabernet was the worse wine of the night. Since I had drank the wine just 2 days prior, I recognized it right away when I tasted it but I couldn't very well vote it down. I had to pray that another wine would be worse. Number 5 was close. Which ever wine that was. Perhaps if I would of gone with my other choice which was Novelty Hill Cabernet from winemaker Mike Januik, I would of fared better. http://www.noveltyhillwines.com/wines-releases.html This was a wine that I had tasted and had past experience with. Plus Mike Januik's other project was represented last night. http://www.januikwinery.com/ and realistically I thought was the best wine of the night. Perhaps if I would of brought another Washington Beefy Cabernet, I would be celebrating instead of crashing and burning. Oh well!

I am very thankful to Jon for introducing me to such a fun group of wine lovers that follow the same guidelines as myself. I often think as a wine lover how much wine I have collected and consumed. ALOT! But in reality I collect memories of bottles to come and bottles that have been shared with friend and families over the years and years. To me it isn't about "Hey! Check out my wine collection!' But more about "Hey lets make this bottle memorable" I believe we did just that last night.

A special thanx for our host of the evening Chris Poole for allowing the new guy to pick another bottle to share from his locker. 1996 Silver Oak was the first bottle that I actually bought to collect many many years ago. I probably only have 1 or 2 left of the 96 vintage buried somewhere in my locker. It is a wine that brings back both good and sad memories every time I taste it. The 1996 Silver Oak Napa was still tasting great. I will also correct myself in calling out The Orin Swift's Papillon as a Paso Robles Wine. Trust me I have made dumb mistakes like that in the past. That bottle appeared later in the evening and was just another cherry on top of a great night of tasting wines.

Oh one last thing!!

Thanx Chris for recognizing the Charles Shaw before any of us started saying how great it was.

Man! I dodged a bullet there!

Cheers!