Northern Virginia Chapter of the American Wine Society

		AMERICAN WINE SOCIETY A non-profit corporation Northern Virginia Chapter
	“In this age of business and speed, it’s important to take time out, eat a proper meal, and sip wine.” -- Julia Child

AUGUST MEETING:

We traveled to Italy last month, and Chris Braun led us through a series of Italian white wines. Sharing her extensive "new-found" knowledge on the subject, Chris was able to provide quite a bit of background on each of the wines, as well as providing an extensive hand-out of great information. We started the evening with a sparkle as we sipped a very pleasant Asti. We then got into the formal tasting where we compared the wines in flights of two (except for the last one). With great discussion (and dissension among some!) we were able to enjoy some very nice wines and find a new favorite or two among them. In the order of tasting, the wines were as follows:

Year	Producer	Region	Cost
NV	S. Orsola Asti	Piedmont	$ 7.99
2002	Citra Trebbiano d’Abruzzo	Abruzzo	$ 5.99
2002	Barone Fini Pinot Grigio Alto Adige	Trentino Alto Adige	$ 14.99
2002	San Rochetto Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico	Marches	$ 6.99
2003	Roio Orvieto Classico	Umbria	$ 9.99
2002	Pieropan Soave Classico	Veneto	$ 15.99
2003	Villa Lanata Gavi La Toledana	Piedmont	$ 12.99
2003	Michele Chiarlo Moscato d’Asti Nivole	Piedmont	$ 9.45 (half-bottle)

A big "Thank-you!" goes to Chris for leading us through this great evening of wines and sharing her knowledge.

Last, don’t forget to send in your national ballot with your choice for our officers for the upcoming term.

SEPTEMBER MEETING:

It’s time to calibrate your tasting palates and participate in the National Tasting Project. This year, Merlot is the selected grape and we will be tasting and scoring the same wines as all the other participating chapters around the nation. It’s always interesting to see how different chapters line up with one another while judging the same wines. Not to fear, we will also have a quick tutorial/review on how wines should be judged and scored. The meeting is scheduled for Friday, September 17, 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 17th! Also, mark your calendars now for the following chapter meeting on Friday, October 15th.

Cheers,
Dave Barber

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