My friend Kris graciously decided to have a bunch of his friends over for a little wine tasting of some of his favorite wines, all from J. Rickard winery in California. He had amassed quite a collection, and we got to try several vintages of the same wines to see how they compared. It was very interesting, and he had some great wines to share!
Of course there were lots of delicious snacks also - here is a close up of the cheeses!
My favorites were the goat gouda on the top rights, and the herby goat cheese on the lower left. A surprisingly good cheese was the goat blue in the middle on the bottom. It was DELICIOUS on crackers and with the wine... oh my goodness I could eat that all day. I'm sure you can tell that I love goat cheese.
On to the wine. The first trio we tried was J. Rickard's 2008, 2007, and 2006 old vine zinfandels (in that order). The 2006 was definitely my favorite (B+) and I said it was very soft and fruity, unlike the other 2. The 2008 (B-) tasted too alcoholic and the 2007 (C+) was very harsh as well. Opinions varied, as they always do, and it seemed like everyone had a different favorite. Stephen thought the 2007 was the best and said it was "tasty, spicy, and challenging", and Kris liked both the 2006 and the 2008 better than the 2007.
Then, we moved on to his 2008, 2007, and 2006 Meritage wines, which are a blend of the 5 bordeaux grapes (cabernet sauv, merlot, cab franc, petit verdot, and malbec). I liked all of these better than the zinfandels, I guess zins are not really my thing? I gave the 2008 meritage a B+, the 2007 a C- (maybe 2007 was not a good year for my tastebuds!) and the 2006 got an A. I do want to say that if I had tasted any of these 6 wines on their own, I probably would have thought they were all good and worth drinking.
Overall, I learned that the older wines were smoother, fruitier, and easier to drink. The younger ones were a little too tannic and alcoholic for my taste, but I bet in a few years they would be better. Something about the 2007 wines was strange to me, maybe the barrel they were aged in, or the weather, who knows.
To top off the night, Kris brought out his Los Ninos Perdidos Port, which was really delicious. I gave the port an A, and I think it was loved by everyone who had some. Also, a fun moment of the night was at the very end when Kris shared some spread that looks like peanut butter but tastes like COOKIES! It was so incredibly yummy!
The night was a lot of fun!
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