Our Judgment of Paris (in Brooklyn)

What do you learn at a blind tasting? As the panelists discovered at the (in)famous Paris Wine Tasting of 1976: taste rules.

To select the wines we’d launch with here at Gilt Taste, we invited ten panelists, each of whom you can read about here, to the Brooklyn Winery to taste eighty wines (two groups of five tasted through 40 wines each).

We stacked French wines up against California wines, expensive cult wines with huge followings against new discoveries, classics against the avante garde.  

It was exciting to see that many very affordable wines performed incredibly well, and we found quite a few discoveries. Amongst the whites, a $49.95 rich and creamy white Bordeaux blend, and a wild “Vin de Garage” that we have available for $209, topped the charts.  Our most beloved reds included Heidi Barrett’s great 2009 Vin Perdu, and "The Sisters" a quintessential Napa Cab from Jones Family Vineyards (which made Master Sommelier Laura Maniec hungry for lamb belly and tzatziki sliders). 

Many wines more well-known for their high scores never made it into the top 10.

So here’s the deal: at Taste, we don’t care about wine ratings. We’re trying not to be overly-swayed by preconception or reputation. We care about taste. We love wines that are simply delicious and drink well with food. 

We also care about bringing you wine that’s good for its value—whether it’s a smoky stunner like the $47.95 bottle of Freeman’s Keefer Ranch Pinot Noir or an offering with a hint of age (but a long life ahead of it), like the 2006 inaugural collection of wines from the “world’s hottest winemaker,” Stéphane Derenoncourt.

And if that means we have to keep hosting these blind wine tastings, well then so be it.

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