$80 Wine Beats $5,000 Wine in Blind Pinot Noir Taste Test

By Elina Shatkin Fri., Mar. 18 2011 at 10:11 AM

Categories: Wine

A bottle of New Zealand pinot noir edged out several high-profile French and Californian wines to take the top spot in a recent blind tasting. Talk about bottle shock.

Courtesy of World's Top 20 Pinot Noirs

Tim Fleming judges a pinot noir.

Proving that price is no guaranteed determiner of quality, an $80 bottle of 1998 Martinborough Vineyard Reserve beat 19 other wines, including a $5,500 bottle of 1990 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tache, to take first place at the "World's Top 20 Pinot Noirs." We have no proof that these are, in fact, the world's top 20 pinot noirs, but the blind tasting held Tuesday night at Red White + Bluezz in Pasadena, should earn New Zealand pinots more respect.

In addition to two New Zealand wines, the international field included wines from California, Oregon, Australia, Germany and, naturally, France. Pinot noirs from Burgundy placed well, with three wines in the top five including a 1996 Mortet Clos Vougeot ($190) and a 1996 Hudelot-Noelle Richebourg ($440). The top California Pinot, a $250 bottle of 1991 Williams Selyem Rochioli, placed seventh.

After the jump: download a complete list of wine rankings and judges.

Though the tasting didn't include Two Buck Chuck, the least expensive wine in the bunch, a 2001 Edna Ranch Estate pinot from Tolosa Winery (which sponsored the event), took 9th place. Right above a $500 of 2001 Bass Phillip Reserve from Australia.

Top 20 Pinot Noir Results2.pdf

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Red White and Bluezz

70 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena, CA

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Australia, Burgundy, California, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, DRC, Elina Shatkin, France, Martinborough Vineyard, New Zealand, Pasadena, Pinot Noir, Taste Test, Wine, World's Top 20 Pinot Noirs

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Russ

As the creator of this event, which bore significant effects on the wine market, I would love to answer further questions of those concerned with disparity between vintages, how the wines were selected, and how we created an even playing field for the wines to be showing "at peak" for competition, please reach out to me directly. Just to offer a quick nutshell, the panel of extremely knowledgeable judges (far beyond my own respectable experience level) deliberated on an ideal vintage window that offered each important region the opportunity to demonstrate 1) ageworthiness - notice there is no Kistler Cuvee Katherine, CA's highest "point scoring" pinot, and 2) Multiple great years of expression. To allow/compare only one random year would have been a tremendous disadvantage for some producers - there can be no "what-ifs" in a decisive event such as this. "What IF" a 1961 Lafite had been allowed at the Paris Tasting...Napa would never be recognized today! However, why wasn't Australia invited to THAT party???But I digress...Back to the WPR: We then (under personal winemaker direction) decanted each specimen according to their position in structural expression. Based on the positioning of the La Tache within the top 5, combined with several other credible results - we believe the most "even playing field" was cast for this once-in-a-lifetime, blind throwdown. A cool surprise, yet I believe well deserved, for New Zealand. That McKenna ran away with first place.Russ Meek, Certified Sommelier, Pasadena CA remfiftysix@yahoo.com

Guest

Go New Zealand!!

Martin @ Gavilan Vineyards

What is missing in this article and more over in the competition is that judging a 2001, a 1998 and a 1990 as well as many other years in the competition is not really fair. You really should stick to the same years when doing a bling tasting or to the same wine maker when doing a vertical tasting through the various years.Who decides what wine will be judged. Who picked a 2001 to be judged against a 1990.

It makes great news that a $80 bottle outperformed a $5000 bottle but whill that wine be anywhere near the $5000 bottles performance in 8 years.?Granted, I agree that there are not many bottles out there worth anywhere near $5000. It is wine after all and even if each berry was hand picked by 20-year old certified virgins between 9pm and 3am on a full moon I can rarely see such prices as justifed.At the same time judge properly.

Autumnmood

Yes but then a 1998 vintage may be considered great in one region and crap in another so you could argue that isnt fair either

Nigel

Yes it will be just as good in 8 years time, if not better. This 1998 Reserve Pinot is still incredibly youthful and vibrant and some years short of showing it's best.Nigel

Peterkar

Nonsense - this is a wine with many years of life in it, but in the words of the cellarmaster, it has 'peaked'. That is Martinborough Vineyards' own assessment, as recorded by Michael Cooper.