Cab Franc Challenge Update - Night 3 - Nov. 20

Night 3 (Blend/Meritage) saw yet another disqualification ... a well known winery submitted a non-VQA, non-Cab Franc dominated blend into the mix. Sadly it won the night, but due to the rules we could not keep it on the list.

For the Blends and Reserve nights the scorecard was changed to better reflect the moods of our tasters - instead of just asking for an overall impression of the wine we went a little more high tech and asked for a score for both nose and taste, then with some fancy mathematics these scores were combined to give us the overall impression of the wine. Because the Regular Francs had already begun when this change occurred they will continue to be judged on a single overall mark.

Not surprising with this value conscious bunch, the best tasting wine and the one they would most likely buy, was also the most expensive wine on the table ... this caused the wine to drop from what should have been an inevitable first place finish to its final resting place in sixth based on its price tag.

Congratulations goes out to Joseph, who was able to pick out both the most expensive bottle on the table and the least expensive bottle.

There will be more news to come after Tuesday November 27, as we start to pour the reserves.

Cab Franc Challenge Update - Night 2 - Wednesday Nov. 14

Night two saw a smaller crowd (than night 1 - by 2 people) gather to rate another 12 Cabernet Francs in the regular category ... while we did not have a controversy over labeling like last time - we did have some trouble with a couple of bottles; be it corked, bret or other forms of faults. These two wineries battled it out for last place with two faulty bottles each ... this is truly a shame because I had tried both wines over the summer and neither showed signs of any kind of fault at that time.

On a more positive note ... Night 2's winner inched out Night 1's winner by a mere .02 ... making it the overall leader, for the time being; we have another 8 Regular Cab Francs to judge at our Icewine evening, which has now been set for December 11.

More news as it unfolds from Night 3 (Tuesday November 20) when we try the blends.

Cab Franc Challenge Update - Night 1 - Thursday November 8, 2007

Game on! As we used to say playing hockey in the streets, it was then the sticks started swinging and the ball started rolling. The gloves are off (let's call them capsules and corks) and the ball is rolling at this the first ever Cabernet Franc Challenge. We opened and tried our first 12 wines this Thursday evening. Each major wine region was represented including one that had no designed region at all. Our first night's winning wine had to be disqualified because of faulty labeling practices by the winery. VQA regulations state that a single varietal wine (ie: Cabernet Franc) has to contain a minimum of 85% of that particular grape to be consider a straight varietal ... for example you could put 10% Syrah into a Cabernet Sauvignon and still label it as "Cabernet Sauvignon" on the label without making mention of the syrah. Upon reading the notes from theii winery during the Challenge it was noted that the wine was 80% Franc and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, so the wine shuld have been labeled as a Cabernet, Cabernets or some blend derivative name. Granted the winery in question doesn't fall under the purview of the VQA (though they do use 100% Ontario grapes). So the first night's "best tasting" wine was a blend ... the good news is this makes me excited for blend/Meritage night on the 20th. Stay tuned for more news after the tasting on the 14th.