Thanks for the Ridge, Roy! (Hi Andy!)

Frank T · Post by **Frank T** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 1:32 pm

Roy, on his current visit to Southern California, invited me to a Ridge Zinfandel dinner that he and Gregg Greenbaum had been planning since early in the year. Needless to say, wonderful company (got to meet Andy V, too, and I expect we will be opening many a bottle of port together in the future!) and, to my surprise, actually (only because I am not normally a big zinfandel drinker), truly amazing wines. This isn't a zinfandel site, so I won't belabor the point, but it profoundly changed my understanding of the varietal. 8)

Anyway, it was nice to meet you Andy! And, Roy, thanks again for your grand generosity!

Post by **Andy Velebil** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 8:28 pm

Frank,
It was a pleasure to meet you too and I'm sure we will be sharing some Port again in the near future.

Yes it was a great tasting line up, Ridge Geyserville's and Lytton Springs going back to the 1970's. Zin's are one of my favorite dry wines, but I've never had any old ones until that night. Truly amazing wines, and if served blind many I would not even guess as being Zin's, WOW. Many thanks to Roy for inviting me along.

But, what Frank didn't say is he secretly brought along a 1974 Quinta do Noval Colheita (B.2006). Frank quitely handed the bottle to Roy, who then served it blind to everyone...most guessed it was a Madeira

A great colheita, thanks Frank

Frank T · Post by **Frank T** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 11:26 pm

Ah, yes. Decanting it would have helped...although it's pretty tasty any way you cut it. With four dessert wines already on the menu, I hadn't planned on opening it...the bottle was just a token thanks to Roy for inviting me to the dinner. I'm quite glad he decided to open it, as the dessert flight (and that odd dessert confection the restaurant chose to pair with it) was a let down compared to the rest of the evening. At least this way, we finished the night with a good taste in our mouths.

Post by **Roy Hersh** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 1:16 am

It was great to be able to invite a few So CA FTLOP members to join in the only wine event I was able to muster (lacking in wife points in the bank) during my recent excursion. Just back this evening and had a great time swimming in the ocean (in Nov!!!) in La Jolla, meeting Shamu, then Mickey and his crew for a couple of days ... not to mention the great LA Zin fest.

I am in total agreement that the other dessert wines really were sub-par and thanks to Frank's generosity, the just dessert ended in style. Would you believe there were a number of guesses that the 1974 Noval Colheita was a mid-19th century Madeira, up to a mid-20th century version ... but 90% of the table of 12 guessed Madeira with only one wild guess mentioning a Tawny Port. Heck, blind tasting is very humbling and if I had to venture a guess blind, I would probably have guessed a 1940s Colheita (no way this was really Madeira like) but I would have been off by 3 decades!

A fabulous Ridge-Fest and it was great to meet Frank and get to hang with Andy again (in a non-Port related event).