Alexandre Jipa’s Wine Tasting Club and a Blind California Tasting

You’ve seen Bottle Shock, right? It’s about the 1972 “Judgement of Paris,” a blind tasting of California wines versus Bordeaux.

The French got their sous-vêtements in a knot when Napa took down some French heavy-hitters. One of the reds in the competition was Stag’s Leap, the 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon to be precise.

And on a cool, April night last year I got to enact my own quasi-Judgement of Montreal, skipping the French bottles and stacking a slew of now established Cali Cabs up against each other.

The host was Alexandre Jipa, who offers cellar management services in addition to his monthly tasting club. That means that if you want to start, improve or take inventory of your wine collection, he can help. He does corporate and private group tastings and even offers advice of appropriate bottles for business dining, but his monthly wine club tastings are ways of exploring regions that interest him while opening a bunch of bottles you rarely get the opportunity to compare. It would be heartbreaking to open these alone and let the leftovers waste away on the counter after a comparison tasting. And it’s in the comparison that you can appreciate their subtleties.

HOW IT WORKS

Guests pay their entry, take some tasting glasses, listen to an intro of the wines and wine region and prepare to write notes on what they smell, taste, feel and think of each wine. The night starts with Champagne and ends with platters of charcuterie, cheese and fruit.

Here’s what came in between:

Duckhorn Vineyards – Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2007

Diamond Creek Winery “Red Rock Terrace” Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2010
Diamond Creek Winery “Volcanic Hill” Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2010
Diamond Creek Winery “Gravelly Meadow” Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2010

There’s a cult following for Diamond Creek wines. The first with devotees was the 1978 Lake Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon. The grapes in this area of the winery don’t ripen most years because of the breeze and have only been pressed into wine 14 times in 40 years. We didn’t try a lake, but we did try three others from three different areas of the winery.

Dunn Winery Cabernet Sauvignon 2004
Dunn Winery Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

Stag’s Leap Vineyards “SLV” Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 1997
Stag’s Leap Vineyards “Fay” Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 1997

A lot more people have heard of Stag’s Leap since the judgment. But the winery hasn’t gone commercial on its high-end products. Instead, the winery says its SLV Vineyard, first planted in 1970, “now yields even greater depth of fruit than that found in the 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon, the wine that won the famous 1976 Paris Tasting.”

UPCOMING TASTINGS

Here’s what’s coming up this year:

What did he drink this summer? “I really want to open my one remaining 6-L bottle of 1982 Chateau Gloria. There were only 32 such bottles produced and at one point I had 2 of them,” he wrote in a summer newsletter. He did subsequently open that bottle. And he thought it was, indeed, glorious.

To join his wine tastings and receive notices of SAQ sales, tasting reports and purchase recommendations, sign up for his wine club mailing list by emailing him at alexandrejipa@vieillesvignes.ca