Northern Virginia Chapter of the American Wine Society

		AMERICAN WINE SOCIETY A non-profit corporation Northern Virginia Chapter
	“Can’t we just get rid of wine lists? Do we really need to be reminded every time we go to a nice restaurant that we have no idea what we are doing? Why don’t they just give us a trigonometry quiz with the menu?” -- Jerry Seinfeld

APRIL MEETING:

Our Jerry (Motter) helped us get through that trig quiz at our last meeting. He explained the many different things that can be found on wine labels, and not just any labels, but labels from wines made in many different countries. With this knowledge, and the marvelous hand-outs he had prepared for us, we are all a bit more knowledgeable on how to read a wine label. But, we continued on, and actually opened the bottles and tasted the contents! The table below shows the wines tasted including the first two social wines. To compare and contrast, wines were poured in flights of two, except for the last, bonus wine. As you can see, there was quite a variety of similarities as well as differences. I think that we all left a little wiser on just what can be found on wine labels. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge, Jerry!

Year	Producer	Varietal	Appelation	Cost
2003	Concha y Torro Frontera	Sauvignon Blanc	Chile	(1.5 liters) $ 6.99
2000	Marcos James Mendoza	Merlot	Argentina	(1.5 liters) $5.49
2002	Fitz-Ritter Dürkheimer Hochbenn	Riesling Kabinett	Germany	$10.99
2002	Wolf Blass Gold Label	Riesling	Australia	$13.99
1999	Taurino Salice Salentino	Rosso Riserva	Italy	$8.99
2000	Campo Viejo	Rioja Crianza	Spain	$8.49
2001	Covey Run	Cabernet/Merlot	Washington State	$8.99
2001	Château Les Arromans	Bordeaux	France	$8.99
1993	Tokaij Aszú Disznoko	5 Puttonyos Tokaiji	Hungary	(500 ml) $35.00

MAY MEETING:

Our next meeting will be concentrating on one grape variety: Pinot Noir. Carl Brandhorst will be leading our tour as we explore how this one grape variety fares in different growing conditions around the world. The meeting is scheduled for Friday April 16, 2004 at St. Mary’s Church. The gathering will begin at 7:30 p.m. while the formal meeting should get underway at 8:00 p.m. Please RSVP at least 24 hours in advance if you are planning to attend so we will have enough of everything. Call 703-941-2384 or complete the following RSVP form.

See you on the 16th, or, looking into the future, at June's meeting on the 18th!

Cheers,
Dave Barber

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